Solar Power Satellite by Wireless Power Transmission
Abstract
A immense anxiety has been voiced in latest years over the general use of energy, the partial supply of resources, and the pollution of the environment from the use of current energy conversion systems. Electrical power accounts for much of the energy consumed. Much of this power is wasted during transmission from power plant generators to the consumer. The resistance of the wire used in the electrical grid distribution system causes a loss of 26-30% of the energy generated. This loss implies that our current system of electrical distribution is only 70-74% efficient.
Nikola Tesla is greatest known for his remarkable statement concerning the wireless transmission of electrical power. His first efforts towards this end started in 1891 and were future to simply "disturb the electrical equilibrium in the nearby portions of the earth... to bring into operation in any way some instrument." In other words the entity of his experiments was simply to create effects locally and detect them at a distance.
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Introduction
It is recognized that electromagnetic energy is linked with the propagation of electromagnetic waves. In theory, we can utilize all electromagnetic waves for a wireless power transmission (WPT). The distinction between the WPT and communication systems is only efficiency. Maxwell’s Equations show that the electromagnetic field and its power diffuse to all directions. Though we transmit energy in a communication system, the transmitted energy is diffused to all directions. Though the conventional power is adequate for a transmission of information, the efficiency from the transmitter to receiver is quiet low. Therefore, we do not call it the WPT system.
WPT is a point-to-point power transmission. For the WPT, we had enhanced concentrate power to receiver. It was prove that the power transmission efficiency can approach close to 100%. We can added concentrate the transmitted microwave power to the receiver aperture areas with taper technique of the transmitting antenna power distribution. Renowned power tapers of the transmitting antenna are Gaussian taper, Taylor distribution, and Chepachet distribution. Such taper of the transmitting antenna is usually used for suppression of side lobes. It correspond to increase in the power transmission efficiency. Concerning the power transmission efficiency of the WPT, there are some good optical approaches in Russia.
Future appropriate and major application of the WPT via microwave is a Space Solar Power Satellite (SPS). The SPS is a gigantic satellite considered as an electric power plant orbiting the Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO). It consists of mainly three segments; solar energy collector to convert the solar energy into DC (direct current) electricity, DC-to-microwave converter, and large antenna array to beam down the microwave power to the ground. The first solar collector can be moreover photovoltaic cells or else solar thermal turbine. The second DC-to-microwave converter of the SPS can be either microwave tube system and/or semiconductor system. It may be their combination. The third segment is a gigantic antenna array.
Table 1.1 shows some characteristic parameters of the transmitting antenna of the SPS. An amplitude taper on the transmitting antenna is adopt in order to amplify the beam collection efficiency and to reduce side lobe level in almost all SPS design. A characteristic amplitude taper is called 10 dB Gaussian in which the power density in the center of the transmitting antenna is ten times larger than that on the edge of the transmitting antenna.
The SPS is anticipated to be operational around 2030. Before understanding of the SPS, we can think about other applications of WPT. In recent years, mobile devices advanced considerably and have need of decreasing power consumption. It means that we can utilize the diffused weak microwave power as power source of the mobile devices with low power consumption such as RF-ID. The RF-ID is radio IC-tug with wireless power transmission and wireless information. This is a new WPT application like broadcasting.
Conclusion
Electrical energy can be reasonably transmitted without wires to any terrestrial distance. The monetary transmission of power without wires is of vital importance to man.
This knowledge opened up the possibility of constructing power stations on the moon. These power stations will be able of transmitting power to earth using microwave energy. Such microwave energy would then be changed into electricity using a huge array of rectenna receivers on the earth.
However with all the challenge that face wide-scale consumption of this new technology wireless power transmission for solar power satellite is still measured as a next-generation power transmission system.