space-based harvesters founded on the technology demonstrated by MAPLE could one day provide access to eight times as much solar energy on average as their terrestrial counterparts.
That harvested energy could then be dispatched to any place on Earth, including areas devastated by war or natural disaster, or regions with poor energy infrastructure, explains nanophotonic and solar-energy expert Harry Atwater, who is also one of SSPP’s principal investigators. “You could imagine in places like that, where you want to bring power to a large city, you could immediately do that without building a large power grid,” Atwater says. “The thing that’s really transformative about space solar power is that, unlike solar power on Earth, it has potential to eliminate the need for storage. You get power continuously, 24 hours a day, and you don’t have to come up with day-to-night storage, like in the form of batteries, or season-to-season storage.”
Caltech researchers hope to harness the sun’s energy and power the planet from 300 miles above. by Ker Than On a cool, clear evening in May 2023, Caltech electrical engineer Ali Hajimiri and four members of his lab gathered on the roof of the Gordon and Betty Moore Laboratory of Engineering to awa
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