An environmentally friendly solution to keeping the lights on – even when there's not enough sunshine for your rooftop solar panels nor wind for turbines at sea – may lie not here on Earth but far above the clouds.
Solar power generated in space can be sent to Earth from a large satellite, about a kilometre wide, which captures the sun's rays with mirrors before concentrating them onto panels to produce electricity.
Scientists say they have solved one of the biggest engineering problems that for long faced space-based solar power: how to safely and reliably send this electricity to the ground, using high-frequency radio waves.
One of the many advantages of space-based solar power is that it can beam near to the point of demand
Martin Saltau
UK-based start-up Space Solar is hoping to have a pioneering system up and running, with an investment of $800 million, delivering a set-up capable of beaming back 30 megawatts of energy to Earth by 2030.
The system can wirelessly transmit power to ground stations round the clock, which is then continuously fed into the grid. The company's plans for beaming energy to earth stations in Iceland are already on the drawing table.
With the UAE, Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Middle East committed to becoming major players in generating the green energy needed to curb climate change, the technology breakthrough is drawing interest across the region.
Martin Soltau, Space Solar's joint chief executive, told The National the technology promises an “economic revolution” as the world strives to move towards its goals of net zero emissions, in an accelerated time frame that has raised questions about reliable sources of power to keep the lights on.
"We're trying to do it very quickly but wind and solar are intermittent and the storage that you need to give you reliable, affordable energy doesn't really exist yet," he said.
“So what’s happening is that you end up with two energy systems. You’ve got your intermittent renewables and then a second energy system, which is the back-up. What space-based solar power can do is transformative because it provides this continuous supply. Day and night, all weather energy.”
The science behind space-based solar power has been known for decades, but costs slowed research and development work.
Now, with Elon Musk's SpaceX company and others inventing reusable rockets and lowering the cost of transporting goods to space, the day when such a solar power plant can be assembled in space is coming ever closer.
Space Solar has already been undertaking “bit of deep technical work” with Saudi Arabia’s Neom project on providing energy, said Mr Soltau. There have also been in discussions with government and the private sector in the UAE.
The start-up has been exploring opportunities elsewhere in the Middle East. A representative recently told a conference organised by the Arab British Chamber of Commerce that Libya may also be a good location as a base station in future.
Mr Soltau believes the technology is ideally suited to help countries in the Middle East make the transition from hydrocarbons to green energy without having to invest heavily in nuclear power.
The region has many mountains but not enough water to make hydroelectric power feasible and nuclear takes a “long, long time to build”. There is even potential to for exporting energy.
Space-based
“Of course a lot of the Middle East countries rely on fossil fuel exports. Well, this gives another form of export in an incredibly flexible way. So it really could be a great transition for those economies," he said.
“The Middle East is brilliant in many ways and the UAE is a leader in kind of ambitious technology in many ways. If you think of a partnership with, let's say, the UK and the UAE.
"You can be running the UAE on terrestrial solar in the day, and exporting the space-based solar power to Northern Europe or the UK, because we've got drizzly cloud. Then at night, the space solar power is powering the UAE.”
Such an energy partnership would see a UAE-based "operator switching the beam to supply to a UK-based rectenna [a special type of receiving antenna for converting electromagnetic energy] directly from the satellite", Mr Soltau added.
"One of the many advantages of space-based solar power is that it can beam near to the point of demand, and thus minimise the requirement for expensive and vulnerable grid transmission cables," he said.
If the idea sounds like science fiction, then that’s probably because it emanated from that realm. In 1941 science fiction author Isaac Asimov set his short story Reason on a solar power satellite that is beaming energy in the form of waves not only down to Earth, but also to other inhabited areas of the solar system.
At first glance, the sheer size of the satellite Space Solar plans to put into orbit raises questions about how it can be transported.
Dish construction
The solution, said Mr Soltau, lies in the thousands of identical parts that comprise the satellite, being taken up in stages and then assembled in space itself.
“The size and scale of these things is that they're made of hundreds of thousands of identical Lego bricks. The power modules are all identical,” he added.
"They're made in gigafactories, just like our laptops and then transported up to space. Think of Amazon warehouse robotic assembly machines.
The challenge is to “get good at the space assembly of these large structures, which we haven't really done before at this scale'" said Mr Soltau.
"We completely understand the physics and the dynamics of how to do this, but it hasn't been done.
"And so that's a big engineering development in its own right, but it can be done.”
Space Solar’s first foray into supplying energy will come in the form of a deal with Iceland’s Reykjavik Energy, which will be a customer for the 30MW plant. Iceland has other sources of clean energy including geothermal power, but demand is growing as more data centres open in the country.
Space Solar is not alone in the field and other companies are pursuing the technology in Japan, China, America and elsewhere. A US-based start-up, Aetherflux announced in October that it aims to set up a constellation of smaller and cheaper satellites in low Earth orbit, rather than a large single unit favoured by Space Solar.
The cost of producing the energy is the biggest hurdle Space Solar and other companies are looking to surmount.
Lowering costs
US space agency Nasa found that space-based solar could be 12 to 80 times more expensive than terrestrial alternatives. But its authors admitted they had to make assumptions because the technology is so new and cost is really dominated by launch and manufacturing.
Mr Soltau points to the ability of Starship, SpaceX’s reusable heavy rocket, which has become the tallest, heaviest and most powerful vehicle to fly, to help win the battle.
“Space solar power has really long been considered the ultimate form of clean energy, but it's always been too expensive until Elon Musk came along and showed and operationalised reusable rockets," he said.
“Starship is now fully reusable with huge capacity, 100-plus tons per launch. And these are the two things we need. We need high capacity to launch these things rapidly, and we need very low cost.
“If launch costs, as many analysts think, are coming down below $500 possibly to $100 per kilogram, then space based solar power will become incredibly cheap and far cheaper than wind and solar.”
Space Solar has received £10 million from the UK government but is now hoping to attract private investors, including infrastructure funds and energy companies.
“Space-based solar power has been in the wings for a long time, and a sort of small group of people have been aware of it, that of its sort of huge potential," the chief executive added.
“But others need to be convinced and I think as soon as somebody puts up a substantial proof of concept into space, then there will be a big rush to develop these systems.”
Saturday's schedule at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
GP3 race, 12:30pm
Formula 1 final practice, 2pm
Formula 1 qualifying, 5pm
Formula 2 race, 6:40pm
Performance: Sam Smith
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
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Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
Libya's Gold
UN Panel of Experts found regime secretly sold a fifth of the country's gold reserves.
The panel’s 2017 report followed a trail to West Africa where large sums of cash and gold were hidden by Abdullah Al Senussi, Qaddafi’s former intelligence chief, in 2011.
Cases filled with cash that was said to amount to $560m in 100 dollar notes, that was kept by a group of Libyans in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
A second stash was said to have been held in Accra, Ghana, inside boxes at the local offices of an international human rights organisation based in France.
Company%20Profile
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if you go
The flights
Direct flights from the UAE to the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu, are available with Air Arabia, (www.airarabia.com) Fly Dubai (www.flydubai.com) or Etihad (www.etihad.com) from Dh1,200 return including taxes. The trek described here started from Jomson, but there are many other start and end point variations depending on how you tailor your trek. To get to Jomson from Kathmandu you must first fly to the lake-side resort town of Pokhara with either Buddha Air (www.buddhaair.com) or Yeti Airlines (www.yetiairlines.com). Both charge around US$240 (Dh880) return. From Pokhara there are early morning flights to Jomson with Yeti Airlines or Simrik Airlines (www.simrikairlines.com) for around US$220 (Dh800) return.
The trek
Restricted area permits (US$500 per person) are required for trekking in the Upper Mustang area. The challenging Meso Kanto pass between Tilcho Lake and Jomson should not be attempted by those without a lot of mountain experience and a good support team. An excellent trekking company with good knowledge of Upper Mustang, the Annaurpuna Circuit and Tilcho Lake area and who can help organise a version of the trek described here is the Nepal-UK run Snow Cat Travel (www.snowcattravel.com). Prices vary widely depending on accommodation types and the level of assistance required.
The%20specs
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Started: 2016
Founders: Hussein Nasser Eddin, Laila Akel, Tayeb Akel
Based: Ramallah, Palestine
Sector: Technology, Security
# of staff: 13
Investment: $745,000
Investors: Palestine’s Ibtikar Fund, Abu Dhabi’s Gothams and angel investors
INDIA SQUAD
Rohit Sharma (captain), Shikhar Dhawan (vice-captain), KL Rahul, Suresh Raina, Manish Pandey, Dinesh Karthik (wicketkeeper), Deepak Hooda, Washington Sundar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Axar Patel, Vijay Shankar, Shardul Thakur, Jaydev Unadkat, Mohammad Siraj and Rishabh Pant (wicketkeeper)
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Mercedes V250 Avantgarde specs
Engine: 2.0-litre in-line four-cylinder turbo
Gearbox: 7-speed automatic
Power: 211hp at 5,500rpm
Torque: 350Nm
Fuel economy, combined: 6.0 l/100 km
Price: Dh235,000
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BMW M5 specs
Engine: 4.4-litre twin-turbo V-8 petrol enging with additional electric motor
Power: 727hp
Torque: 1,000Nm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 10.6L/100km
On sale: Now
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The specs
Engine: 1.5-litre 4-cylinder petrol
Power: 154bhp
Torque: 250Nm
Transmission: 7-speed automatic with 8-speed sports option
Price: From Dh79,600
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MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League final:
Who: Real Madrid v Liverpool
Where: NSC Olimpiyskiy Stadium, Kiev, Ukraine
When: Saturday, May 26, 10.45pm (UAE)
TV: Match on BeIN Sports
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Engine: 51.5kW electric motor
Range: 400km
Power: 134bhp
Torque: 175Nm
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Tax authority targets shisha levy evasion
The Federal Tax Authority will track shisha imports with electronic markers to protect customers and ensure levies have been paid.
Khalid Ali Al Bustani, director of the tax authority, on Sunday said the move is to "prevent tax evasion and support the authority’s tax collection efforts".
The scheme’s first phase, which came into effect on 1st January, 2019, covers all types of imported and domestically produced and distributed cigarettes. As of May 1, importing any type of cigarettes without the digital marks will be prohibited.
He said the latest phase will see imported and locally produced shisha tobacco tracked by the final quarter of this year.
"The FTA also maintains ongoing communication with concerned companies, to help them adapt their systems to meet our requirements and coordinate between all parties involved," he said.
As with cigarettes, shisha was hit with a 100 per cent tax in October 2017, though manufacturers and cafes absorbed some of the costs to prevent prices doubling.
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Education reform in Abu Dhabi
The emirate’s public education system has been in a constant state of change since the New School Model was launched in 2010 by the Abu Dhabi Education Council. The NSM, which is also known as the Abu Dhabi School Model, transformed the public school curriculum by introducing bilingual education starting with students from grades one to five. Under this new curriculum, the children spend half the day learning in Arabic and half in English – being taught maths, science and English language by mostly Western educated, native English speakers. The NSM curriculum also moved away from rote learning and required teachers to develop a “child-centered learning environment” that promoted critical thinking and independent learning. The NSM expanded by one grade each year and by the 2017-2018 academic year, it will have reached the high school level. Major reforms to the high school curriculum were announced in 2015. The two-stream curriculum, which allowed pupils to elect to follow a science or humanities course of study, was eliminated. In its place was a singular curriculum in which stem -- science, technology, engineering and maths – accounted for at least 50 per cent of all subjects. In 2016, Adec announced additional changes, including the introduction of two levels of maths and physics – advanced or general – to pupils in Grade 10, and a new core subject, career guidance, for grades 10 to 12; and a digital technology and innovation course for Grade 9. Next year, the focus will be on launching a new moral education subject to teach pupils from grades 1 to 9 character and morality, civic studies, cultural studies and the individual and the community.
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8.20pm: Al Maktoum Challenge Round 2 Group 2 (TB) $350,000 (D) 1,900m
8.55pm: Al Bastakiya Trial Conditions (TB) $60,000 (D) 1,900m
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Rain Management
Year started: 2017
Based: Bahrain
Employees: 100-120
Amount raised: $2.5m from BitMex Ventures and Blockwater. Another $6m raised from MEVP, Coinbase, Vision Ventures, CMT, Jimco and DIFC Fintech Fund
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The specs
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Transmission: eight-speed PDK automatic
Power: 445bhp
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Kat Wightman's tips on how to create zones in large spaces
- Area carpets or rugs are the easiest way to segregate spaces while also unifying them.
- Lighting can help define areas. Try pendant lighting over dining tables, and side and floor lamps in living areas.
- Keep the colour palette the same in a room, but combine different tones and textures in different zone. A common accent colour dotted throughout the space brings it together.
- Don’t be afraid to use furniture to break up the space. For example, if you have a sofa placed in the middle of the room, a console unit behind it will give good punctuation.
- Use a considered collection of prints and artworks that work together to form a cohesive journey.
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THE BIO
BIO:
Born in RAK on December 9, 1983
Lives in Abu Dhabi with her family
She graduated from Emirates University in 2007 with a BA in architectural engineering
Her motto in life is her grandmother’s saying “That who created you will not have you get lost”
Her ambition is to spread UAE’s culture of love and acceptance through serving coffee, the country’s traditional coffee in particular.
The burning issue
The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.
Read part four: an affection for classic cars lives on
Read part three: the age of the electric vehicle begins
Read part one: how cars came to the UAE
