It sounds like a long shot to some: The idea of solar power plants orbiting the Earth and beaming renewable energy back to us. But new research from the U.K., along with the development of ultra-lightweight solar cells made of cadmium telluride, is generating new hope that solar panel farms in space could be closer to becoming a reality than ever before.
Between the increasing power needs of spacecraft payloads and the Earth's own accelerated need for zero-carbon electricity, calls have grown louder for new ways to capture and use solar power both in space and on Earth. Two major obstacles have stood in the way of scientists' efforts to get that near-boundless solar energy from a fleet of light-collecting panels in orbit down to the power lines on the planet: a too-high cost of creating solar panel farms in the first place, and the cost of maintaining them against punishing levels of radioactivity.
