Solaris views on NASA SBSP report
The NASA Office of Technology, Policy and Strategy released their report (pdf), on Space-Based Solar Power in January 2024, concluding that improvements in some key areas of space capabilities and technologies could lead to commercially viable solutions that were competitive with other renewable energy systems on both cost and Greenhouse Gas emissions metrics.
The conclusion of the report aligns well with similar studies in the UK, Japan, China and by ESA, that all show that there is a path towards SBSP becoming one of the cheapest and cleanest renewable energy sources that is scalable for our future energy needs.
This latest assessment by NASA sought to understand under which conditions SBSP would be an economically competitive option to achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions compared to alternatives. As such, it focused on analysing projected costs of SBSP but did not analyse the substantial other benefits of SBSP to the future energy mix in terms of non-economic parameters such as energy reliability, security and strategic independence.
Two different reference architectures were assessed in ‘baseline’ scenarios of first-of-a-kind systems, proposed for construction in the 2040s, where assumptions were taken using a mix of existing, improved, and indeed, in some cases, worse technology performance parameters and costs than have been already demonstrated today. This led to such scenarios attaining very high overall costs for launch, deployment, maintenance and disposal of SBSP systems. It has long been recognised however by previous NASA and other international studies, that significant advancements in the performance and costs of key technologies for SBSP, beyond what is used in practice today, would be required to fully realise its potential.
Nevertheless, closer analysis of the report, under the heading of “Sensitivity Analysis”, shows an assessment of “parameters that could reasonably be expected to vary with uncertainty”, including those related to launch, in-orbit transfer scenarios, manufacturing and solar cell efficiency. The assumptions used by NASA for these sensitivity analyses are much more in family with those used by other international studies, and a clear rationale is provided in the NASA report for each of these updated assumptions. These assumptions point to how SBSP could become a competitive clean energy source and therefore highlight where the priorities are for future R&D investments to make this possible.
In summary, the NASA report is a welcome and timely addition to the strong body of evidence from public and private initiatives around the world, that show that SBSP could be a game-changing new energy source but which needs adequate investments now if it is to soon help provide the clean and affordable energy the world so desperately needs.