or an equivalent power level of 1850 GW (30% x 541012 kWh / 8760 hours/year = 1850 GW). Assuming that unto 15% could be generated better and/or cheaper at a distant location, the market size for relay power is estimated at 2400 billion kWh or 275 GW yearly. Growth in market size: since the developed world's energy will be stable, growth is in the developing world. In the period to 2020 about 13,000 billion kWh grid demand will be added (30% of 50.1012kWh), almost doubling the grid market size. Since the spread of grids will give fewer suitable ‘distant' locations, relay market will not show such a large growth, we assume the maximum size to range between 2600 and 3600 billion kWh. Calculation of the power loss for a 400 kV high voltage transmission line [SME Mining Engineering Handbook, 1973] transferring 1 GWatt over 3000 miles gives a total energy loss of 1.62 billion kWh a year, or $81 million yearly, on a total value of $440 million transferred power, that is a loss of 18%. This evaluates to $0.01/kWh powerloss for our example. In order to assess total cost of transfer over this distance, the capital cost, depreciation and maintenance of the high voltage power lines themselves should be added. Since we have no data available on the costs of such a system, we will roughly assume the power loss value of $0.01/kWh. Peak Power Similar in characteristics to the above segment is that of supplying additional power during peak loading times. Users will be the electricity companies operating the grid in currently developed locations, which will require high reliability that the energy source is available when the need it. The amount of power required is 500 MWatt or more per location, with at present a global yearly demand as high as 3200 billion kWh. The market will grow to 6000 billion kWh especially in the developing countries. With a price of $0.10/kWh the monetary value is around $320 billion per year at present. In order evaluate the size and price of this segment we make the following assumptions: • predictions for world population and global energy demand are as per Chapter 2 • 30% of the total energy currently produced is generated as electricity ; this percentage is expected to remain constant • as average present end-user price for electricity we use $0.10/kWh in '92 economic conditions; lower in the USA and higher in most European countries • delivering one kWh baseload power to the electricity grid will yield 50% of the end user price, i.e. $0.05 • the price of peak power is double that of baseload power, i.e. $0.10/kWh. We assume here that peakload is from 07:00 to 10:00 (a.m.) and 17:00 - 21:00 (p.m.) • approximately 50% of the total installed power capacity is baseload, the other 50% being peakload power. The total yearly generated electricity in developed locations is roughly equivalent to 16,000 billion kWh (30% of 54-1012 kWh, refer to Chapter 2). If 50% of the capacity is operating for 6 of the 24 hours per day, it is providing 20% of the total electricity. Hence 3200 billion kWh electricity should roughly be the peak power demand, equivalent to a global market of $320 billion per year. About growth: grids installed in developing countries will let the global electricity demand grow to about 30,000 billion kWh, almost doubling it; the peak power market will consequently also roughly double over this time period. Taking the larger electricity grids where power is generated at the GW level, the quantity demanded at a single location can be 500 MW or more. 3.1.2 Mid-Term Applications Defining the markets for space solar power for the mid term is an interesting problem, as the time period in question is one of transition and can only be vaguely defined. It is believed that there may be a time frame where sufficient experience has been gained with power beaming technology to emplace commercially active power satellites in the 100 kW to 1 MW range—big enough to provide useful power in space, but not yet on the scale necessary for commercial power beaming to Earth. Because the power levels involved are likely to still be small on a terrestrial scale during this period, the market for beamed power on Earth is unlikely to be significantly different from that described in section 3.1.1 above. Thus most of this section is
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