GCL Group chairman Zhu Gongshan told the opening of the 19th International Solar
PV and Smart Energy & Storage & Battery (Shanghai) Conference that the next
phase of the photovoltaic industry’s paradigm shift will be space-based solar —
"borrowing land from the sky." He said the industry is moving from a watts+bits
era to one combining materials and aerospace: harvesting above the atmosphere
avoids atmospheric attenuation and diurnal cycles and offers near-ideal
generation conditions. Falling launch costs from reusable rockets and large
commercial satellite constellations creating scalable demand are pushing space
PV toward engineering economics. Breakthroughs in perovskite/tandem cells,
ongoing validation of engineering reliability, scaling of manufacturing and
system cost improvements, and development of radiation-tolerant encapsulation
could allow space applications within five to ten years.
