Japan and its space agency called JAXA have been trying for decades to enable the transmission of solar energy from space, and now a deadline of 2025 has been set.
In 2015, JAXA scientists made a major breakthrough when they transmitted 1.8 kilowatts of power 50 meters from a wireless receiver. That’s enough energy to power an electric kettle, and now the Japanese are ready to bring this technology “closer” to reality.
A Japanese public-private partnership aims to transmit solar energy from space by 2025. The project is led by Naoki Shinohara, a Kyoto University professor who has been working on solar energy from space since 2009, and the plan is to launch a series of small satellites into orbit. Those satellites will try to transmit the solar energy they collect to ground stations hundreds of kilometers away.