Hello everyone, another time to talk about alternative source of power for planet earth. It's no more news that man has adjusted to the use of electricity and can barely do anything directly or indirectly without it. It has been predicted by scientist that the world major source of energy for power generation (i.e fossil fuel such as coal, crude oil and natural gas ) will soon run out. This is predicted to happen sooner than you think, i.e as early as 2055. Therefore the current focus is on how to develop alternative sources of generating electrical power and adopt it (them) as soon as possible. The sun poses to be a good source and an alternative to this electricity generation predicament.

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Solar energy is one of the most abundant source of energy to man. This energy is the primary source of energy to every other sources, as these energy sources can trace their origin directly or indirectly to the sun, which produce solar energy. Solar energy has not been fully utilize to produce electricity for man. If this energy can be harness more, the issue of global warming on earth will be handled to an extent as there will be less burning of fossil fuel which is majorly responsible for green house effect and global warming at large.

The current utilization of solar energy has to do with the installation of solar panels on roof and other expose surfaces. This solar panels harness this energy during the day or when sun is up and convert this energy to electricity, which either charges a battery or connected to appliances where it will be use directly.

This methods of harnessing solar energy is limited, i.e it cannot harness solar energy when weather conditions are not favorable. This makes it inefficient and unreliable, in fact nonoperational in places like Alaska where the weather condition all year round is cloudy. Several improvement have been done on solar panels to improve their ability to harness solar energy even when the sun is a little bit down here, but this technology only work to a degree, as efficiency drops with drop in intensity of sunlight.

The sun is ever available, it's earth atmosphere alongside other bodies present in space that reduces it's availability here on earth. According to U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE), over 30% of solar energy from the sun never gets to earth, as they are reflected back in the atmosphere. If a solar device is install in geosynchronous orbit, i.e the parking space of satellites, with a distance of about 22,329 miles away from earth, we could generate more electrical energy. At this height, the sun has an intensity of about 1347 watts per square, which is 30% more than at ground level. Beyond the intensity, the device will be expose to sunlight 24/7 all year round, creating a reliable, clean, efficient power supply.

Background Knowledge of Basic components

Before we talk about sending solar devices to space to harness the unlimited energy of the sun, we must equip ourselves with the knowledge of how solar devices alongside other devices that will be needed for this project work and how they can be put together to get electrical energy transmitted to earth from space.

• Photo-voltaic Cells; When we talk about solar power, the first thing that comes into mind apart from sunlight is photo-voltaic cells. These cells are made up of silicon which has the ability to absorb energy from protons. Part of the silicon is mixed with phosphorous and the other with boron, because they posses more and less electron respectively when compared to silicon. With this mixture, it will require less energy for the photo-voltaic cells to release electron. Photo-voltaic cells are connected together to form what we call solar panels. A combination of several solar panels is what we referred to as solar farms.
  
  

• Microwaves Transmitters; This is a device capable of transmitting microwaves across a distance. They are capable of sending narrow beams to a receiving antenna at high and same frequencies without interactions. This high frequency transmission gives it a very high information carrying capacity.

• Laser Emitters; This is a device capable of emitting light rays which is focus at the point of application. They produce light in narrow beams which have a very low divergence and can be concentrated at a spot over a great distance.

• Antenna; It is a device which acts as an interface between electric current in a metal and radio waves in space. It is capable of transmitting and receiving radio waves, but for this work, we will focus more on receiving of radio waves (or micro waves). The antenna during reception of a radio wave, transmit it to electric current at it's terminals and then send to a receiver which amplifies the current for use. This type of antenna is referred to as a rectifier.

Recent Development and Results;

There have been series of experiment to know if the propose wireless transmitting theory is practically possible. Series of success were made in 2015 by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), who successfully transmitted wireless electricity through a distance.


During the experiment in 2015, Mitsubishi Heavy industries was able to transmit 10 Kilowatt of electricity by microwave technology over a distance of about 500 meters (1640 feet). This electricity was received in a kitchen at the destination and used to power kitchen appliances effectively.

Also, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in the same 2015, made a mark too in wireless electricity transmission. This firm was able to transmit effectively 1.8 Kilowatt of electricity over a distance of 55 meters (170 feet). This came as a result of search for alternative power source for Japan who currently depend mostly on nuclear power sources.

With these recent success in wireless transmission, the scientist can effectively transmit wireless electricity from space to earth.

How It Works

To tap into this abundant energy of the sun from space, scientist have to lunch rockets with solar farm to space and following already experimented method of transmission, we can get these electric energy down to earth.

With the solar farm in space, light of the sun is captures at high intensity, the photo-voltaic cells then convert this energy to electrical charges. This electricity produce in space will be used to power a microwave laser, this laser then focus narrow beams straight to antennas installed at the ground station. At the ground station the narrow beam received by the antennas is converted back to electricity and transmitted for use.

Conclusion

In a bid to meet up with the growing demand for clean and green power source, solar systems have been developed. But these developed solar system are not efficient enough to meet the needs of mankind, this is as a result of weather and other factors hindering the availability of sunlight here on earth. There is therefore a need to place solar farm in the geosynchronous orbit, where direct sunlight can be captured at high intensity 24/7 by photo-voltaic cells, the captured energy is then convert to electricity to power a laser emitter that emit narrow beam down to ground station where it is converted back to electricity. This method of producing electricity is clean, green, efficient and reliable.

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