ISU Space Solar Power Program Final Report 1992 Kitakyushu J

this than for the previous one, hence about 6.4 hours delivery per day during peak load times, yearly revenues would be about $116 million. Over its 15 years lifetime this could total to $1750 million. Project costs are not specifically estimated, and are probably $23 billion for recurring costs (development not included). With a constant and predictable cash flow the full deployment of space solar power could be further driven. Large scale implementation Next step would be transition into full scale power delivery with a typical size of the power stations of 5 GW in geosynchronous orbit. This orbit maximizes the revenues, compare delivering about 23 hours power for $0.05 /kWh instead of 6 hours of power for $0.10 /kWh a day. Revenues for ISPO are substantial now, about $2 billion per year per operating satellite. Lifetime for each power station is assumed 30 years, with replacement costs of a satellite being estimate at $30 billion. For more detailed estimation of project costs please refer to section 11.1 of this report. Plan for space to space solar power For space to space solar power, section 11.1.1 of this report concludes that near term commercial uses do not seem viable at this moment. It is found that the size of a power satellite should be large compared to the small market identified on the near term, with large scale use giving better opportunities for a space to space application, for instance a lunar settlement. Consequently, we give below the typical plan that could be adopted to develop this market if a near or mid term use is foreseen. For this market we propose the same basic steps as for the space to Earth market, but in general the amount of power delivered will be smaller than for Earth with the following milestones: • technical demonstration • first business application • first full scale power generation • evolution to full deployment. The demonstration case 1 discussed before, space to space power beaming, could be used as a stepping stone for the development of this market. For next steps the upscaling of the satellites as the delivered power increases should be done in steps, like for the space to Earth market. We assume that since the price of power is high, $200 /kWh for the mid term, some business application could be found for the early steps, before reaching full size. Only if the satellite size can grow to MW size, commercial use is deemed viable (see section 11.1.1). Commercialization of ISPO By commercializing ISPO the stimulus of possible profit will spread the participation over a larger number of industries and countries, and will drive to lower general cost levels. Thus, benefit to all players is expected. The approach to commercialization of ISPO is similar for space and Earth markets and is described hereafter. Since investments are large and substantial revenues are not expected in the first 10 years of the space solar power program, we assumed that it starts as a mainly public funded program. The principle we use to commercialize the solar power activities is that, as soon as actual revenues of selling solar power cover certain activities of power delivery in a profitable sense, these are transferred to a commercial organization. For example, rectenna operations could be transferred to ISPO as first commercially run activity. In this way, reasonable returns on related investments can be made, and private funding sources could also be used to finance these activities, instead of public funding only. In general terms, the operations could be privatized as first step due to their relatively low cost. Next, launch and manufacturing costs could be covered, with as most costly part the development activities being the last step. Hence, ISPO as organization could step by step be responsible for a larger part of the cycle of development, manufacturing, maintenance and operation activities of the total system, starting at the end of the sequence and working backwards. This should be a dynamic process based on the actual costs and economic conditions. Based on the estimates of the cost for the various parts as presented earlier in this chapter (section 11.1.2) we have drawn a typical plan. Below this plan is given by a sequence of activities which are proposed to be privatized step by step. The steps show roughly an increasing monetary size, with typical cost estimates being indicated as below: • maintenance of the ground facilities: $0.5 million/year

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