The island of Palau might be the first site on Earth to get solar-power from space…
‘Drilling Up’ Into Space for Energy from PhysOrg.com
(AP) — While great nations fretted over coal, oil and global warming, one of the smallest at the U.N. climate conference was looking toward the heavens for its energy.
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Definitely worth a read. A European company is planning a demonstration SPS for c.2012 – biting the orbital bullet and getting only intermittent (but regular) power to the ground. A vanadium flow battery would be the best means of storing the power supplied from space, and can be topped up and trucked off as desired.
This will provide invaluable real world data on power-transmission, ultra-light solar-panel deployment and so forth. Definitely a worthy venture.