Is capturing and transmitting solar power from space close to being reality?
The idea of capturing solar energy in space where the sun always shines and transmitting it back to our planet seemed not currently feasible and to be the science of Star Trek.
The technology might be further along than you think.
Early in 2018, scientist at Cal-Tech in Southern California announced that they had successfully created a prototype capable of harnessing and transmitting solar energy from space.
They built a system that used three main components. Optical reflectors to concentrate the sunlight, photovoltaic cells convert the sunlight to electricity and integrated circuits covert the electricity to radiofrequency energy that is transmitted via an attached antenna.
The vision is to have a large array of these solar collectors in space integrated with ground-based microwave receivers on Earth to intercept the radiofrequency energy, then converting it to unable energy.
In other words, soon it may be possible to capture solar energy in space and beam it back to Earth.
Sources:
https://www.spacesolar.caltech.edu/main-page/
