III. PROGRAM REQUIREMENTS A. Projected Energy Demand Projections of the Nation's electrical energy demand have been made by the Federal Power Commission (FPC), the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA), and other Federal agencies and private organizations. Figure III-l shows the FPC and ERDA projections for electrical energy demand through 1990 and 2000, respectively. The FPC projection was presented in the 1970 Federal Power Survey report, Volume I. The ERDA projection (presented in ERDA-48, Volume 1, June 1975) involves six different scenarios that are encompassed by the shaded area of figure III-l. The highest electricity generation scenario is based on intensive electrification and it has a 4.4 percent/yr growth rate in the year 2000. The lowest electricity generation scenario is based on improved efficiencies in end use and it has a 1.4 percent/yr growth rate in the year 2000. The FPC projection, which is higher than any of the ERDA projections, has an annual growth rate of 6.0 percent/yr in 1990. The FPC projection has been extrapolated to the year 2025 at the 6.0-percent growth rate in order to provide a reference for the development of solar power system implementation scenarios. B. Implementation Scenarios Effective use of space solar power implies an implementation program that will produce a significant portion of the future electrical program demand. Therefore, scenarios of SPS implementation rates were developed that would provide 25 percent of the new capacity by 2015 (scenario A), 50 percent of the new capacity by 2010 (scenario B), and all of the new capacity by 2005 (scenario C), in relation to the extrapolated FPC projection. Scenario B was used as an illustrative example by which to examine the SPS in terms of its program requirements and resulting economic analysis. This scenario results in providing a significant quantity of the total electrical energy by 2025. The SPS installed capacity by 2025 would be 1120 GW or about 30 percent of the FPC extrapolated projection. If the power output of each SPS is 10 GW (as described in sec. IV), implementation of Scenario B results in a total of 112 satellites in orbit by 2025. The construction rate varies from one per year initially (1995) to seven per year during the last 3 years of the 30-year period.
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