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 la

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.