Originally conceived in the 1960s, space-based solar beaming gigawatt-scale power from geostationary orbit is re-emerging amid falling launch costs. Space-based solar power could provide near-constant electricity to support Europe’s net-zero goals if its delivered cost drops sufficiently. Using continent-wide capacity-expansion modeling, this study quantifies the system value of heliostat swarm and planar array concepts, pinpoints cost thresholds at which they shift from complementary to baseload roles, and discusses actionable insights to guide future research, policy, and investment decisions in large-scale renewable integration.
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Liu et al. (2025) studied this question.
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