Recently, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced that it has partnered with several private Japanese companies to develop and deploy a network of solar panels in space.  While this hopefully won’t turn out to be another space mirror, given the rise in humanity’s energy consumption it’s worth a try.

Japan, having few domestic energy resources, estimates the project could cut the country’s cost per kilowatt-hour by over 85% to $0.08/kWh.  Aptly named the Space Solar Power System (SSPS), the system’s combined energy output when fully operational in 2030 could reach 1-GigaWatt, assuming a series of small scale tests and prototypes built in the coming years function as planned.

Once the solar panels are deployed in a geostationary Earth orbit and each panel expanded to several square miles, their collected energy will be converted and beamed back to Earth via lasers or microwaves.  Collectors on Earth will harness these beams and convert the energy back into usable electricity.  While much public concern still exists pertaining to the dangers of energy transmission via high energy microwave beams (remember the similar SimCity 2000 disaster?), JAXA insists that the technology to be used is safe, although an extensive public relations campaign will be required, making this a much harder sell than in-home wireless power transmission.