People's Daily Online Economic Hotspot Quick Commentary | Can Space Photovoltaics Become a New Blue Ocean?

Recently, news that Elon Musk’s team is exploring China’s photovoltaic industry chain has attracted attention. Previously, Musk proposed a plan to deploy 100 gigawatts of solar AI satellite energy networks into space each year, which accounts for about one-sixth of the world’s new photovoltaic installations, making the “space photovoltaic” concept go viral.

Is space photovoltaics feasible? Can China’s photovoltaic industry chain seize opportunities in this blue ocean?

First, let’s understand what space photovoltaics are. This is a technology that involves installing photovoltaic modules on spacecraft or satellites to convert solar energy into electrical power, providing energy for the spacecraft. The long-term goal is to achieve “space power generation—wireless transmission via microwave or laser—ground reception.” Its advantages include high solar irradiance in space, no impact from day/night cycles or weather, and energy density that can reach 7-10 times that of ground systems.

The combination of photovoltaics and space has a long history. In 1958, solar cells were used for the first time on satellites; a few decades later, China’s second artificial satellite also used solar cells.

Why has market attention on space photovoltaics continued to rise in recent years? On one hand, reusable rocket technology has lowered launch costs, and global commercial space development is accelerating, gradually turning the space economy into reality. On the other hand, the rapid development of data centers and other infrastructure increases the comprehensive demand for power supply and cooling, which ground infrastructure may struggle to keep up with, while photovoltaic power generation efficiency in space far exceeds that on the ground.

It should be said that space photovoltaics have enormous long-term potential, but currently they are still in the exploration and validation stage. The industrialization process is affected by technological development, economic viability, and other factors, and large-scale development will still take some time. For example, gallium arsenide cells have high conversion efficiency, excellent radiation resistance, and high reliability, but are costly; perovskite cells have advantages such as high flexibility and low cost, but their reliability remains to be verified.

More critically, the economic aspect: according to institutional estimates, the current cost per kWh for space photovoltaics is about $2-3, while the cost for ground-based photovoltaics has fallen to $0.03-0.05 per kWh, with a difference of up to a hundred times. If future launch costs cannot be reduced to less than one-tenth of the current, and photovoltaic efficiency cannot be doubled, space photovoltaics will struggle to be economical.

In the face of potential opportunities, China’s photovoltaic industry chain has multiple advantages: Looking at technological R&D, during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, research institutions broke the NREL efficiency record 27 times, increasing the global share to 55%, doubling compared to the 13th Five-Year Plan; looking at manufacturing capacity, during the 14th Five-Year Plan, photovoltaic cell production is 5.5 times that of the 13th Five-Year Plan, with over 90% of global capacity by 2025; looking at cost advantages, over the past decade, China has helped reduce the average cost per kWh of global photovoltaic power projects by 80%.

Regarding space photovoltaics, Chinese photovoltaic companies are actively advancing frontier layouts. Trina Solar’s National Key Laboratory of Photovoltaic Science and Technology has set a world record for large-area perovskite/crystalline silicon tandem modules at 3.1 square meters; Longi Green Energy has established a Future Energy Space Laboratory; JinkoSolar and Jingtai Technology are jointly promoting the R&D and industrialization of perovskite tandem battery technology. Overall, space photovoltaics remain a marathon that requires time and patience. Dreaming big, daring to think and act, while staying grounded and capable of executing well—creating more competitive high-efficiency photovoltaic products—plus breakthroughs in commercial space transportation and continuous reduction in launch costs, this trillion-yuan blue ocean of space photovoltaics may not be too far away.

(Source: People’s Daily)