APPENDIX A SPACE-BASED SOLAR POWER CONVERSION AND DELIVERY SYSTEMS STUDY1 A study of space-based solar power conversion and delivery systems was initiated by NASA, George C. Marshall Space Flight Center, on February 1, 1975, with ECON Inc., as prime contractor and with Grumman Aerospace Corporation, Arthur D. Little, Inc., and Raytheon Company as subcontractors to ECON. The initial study effort ended November 30, 1975, and resulted in an interim report released March 31, 1976. This phase of the study examined potential concepts for a photovoltaic satellite solar power system (SPS) (focusing on power levels of 5000 and 10 000 MW) and a power relay satellite, and studied certain aspects of the economics of these systems. An artist's concept of the 5000 MW SPS is shown in Figure A-l. The initial phase of the study addressed the economic feasibility of an SPS. Potentially possible, but futuristic goals were set on the various technologies necessary for an SPS and the system capital and operation and maintenance costs estimated based on the assumption that all the goals are achieved. This effort led to an SPS capital cost estimate of $7. 6 billion and an annual operation and maintenance cost estimate of $136 million for the 5000 MW system. This system was economically compared with terrestrial fossil fuel systems (coal and oil) over the period 1995-2025 as shown in Figure A-2. The line R in Figure A-2 relates the generation cost of electric power to the capital cost of an SPS assuming this operation and maintenance cost. Thus, given a price of power, this figure provides the allowable unit of cost of an SPS. Projections of the cost of power generation for coal and oil systems were made based on three scenarios: 1. Relative fuel prices2 remain constant (C ,O ) 2. The relative prices of coal increase by 2. 6 percent per year, and the relative price of oil increases by 0.67 percent (0^,0^) 3. The relative prices of coal and oil increase by 5. 0 percent per year (C ,O ). _D b 1. Synopsis — NASA/MSFC Contract No. NAS8-31308. 2. ''Relative prices" refer to the price relationship of all goods and services to each other. The usual practice is to consider one good as the baseline and calculate all prices relative to it. Obviously, generalized inflation would not affect relative prices.
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