Japan plans to beam solar power from space in 2025

[Vahe231991]

From Nikkei Asia:

A new global race is heating up to develop technology for transmitting solar power collected in space to Earth, with a Japanese public-private partnership aiming to run a trial around fiscal 2025.

Space-based solar power was proposed by an American physicist in 1968. The concept is to launch solar panels into space to generate electricity at an altitude of 36,000 kilometers.

[Greg Hullender]

I wonder if these are the same people IEEE Spectrum wrote about nine years ago. That article said JAXA was doing the work, while the new article says it's MITI, but it's hard to believe Japan would have two competing efforts at this point.

There's a whole thread about Solar Power Satellites in the Advanced Concepts forum, if anyone's interested in the topic in general.