This page covers a variety of different power receiver designs and other considerations of the power receivers we plan to use.
Power transmission will be by orbital power satellites.
Receiver designs
Note: we plan for several types of receiver designs:
- Massive circular receivers several kilometers in size, covered in rectennas:
- Ocean-based receivers several kilometers in size, which are based off old oil rigs and can supply huge amounts of electricity that can power entire countries
- Land-based receiver stations, which can be smaller (and as a result, only capture a part of the beam), but still be effective at distributing power to local communities
- Medium-sized receivers (around the order of a few dozen meters):
- Shipborne receivers (both powered ships and unpowered barges) that can dock to quickly deploy energy to coastal cities
- Ground-based receivers of similar scale, which can power e.g. an apartment block and can be placed at the top of the apartment
- Converted telecommunications towers/radar towers that have their radio dishes modified to support power receiving
- Small, air-droppable & helicopter-towable receivers (a few meters to maybe 10 meters max)
- Printed rectenna “sheets” that can be quickly deployed to disaster zones and rural sites
- Power transmitter towers (may not be necessary?) to be able to transmit power from the largest receivers to other regions that can’t host massive receivers
- Skyscraper-sized power towers that have high-mounted receiver dishes which have secondary power beams (phased array or parabolic antennas) to beam power to areas further away (up to around 100km)
- Mountain-based “beacons” that transmit power wirelessly from one mountain-top to another, crossing over high mountain ranges and reaching areas that would be otherwise inaccessible
Engineering
Construction and repurposing of parabolic antennas
The construction of a large parabolic antenna to collect microwave beams with wide cross-sections, as is essential for space-based transmission, comes with substantial difficulties. The first difficulty is due to the fact that the sizes of these parabolic antennas make them very labor-intensive and material-intensive to build, as well as a technical challenge to ensure structural stability. The second difficulty is due to the fact that the complex and sensitive electronics of the feed and transmission line(s) are mounted high up on the antenna
Note that in general, light of a wavelength can be reflected by a reflector that is smooth up to . Which means that 1cm microwaves can be reflected by a 0.1cm (i.e. 1mm) mesh rather than needing one solid parabolic reflector, saving material, cost, and weight. This is very relevant for terrestrial use.
It is also possible to repurpose existing telecommunications antennas as power receivers.