Energy Aperture

Value chain · CLM-0152

In plain terms

Two UK industry planning documents, from 2022 and 2025, each state a beam-intensity design figure in the 230-245 watts-per-square-metre range, but neither traces that number back to any official safety or interference standard: the 2022 report gives no source for its figure, and the 2025 report, for a system planned to launch in 2033, cites only an earlier internal Frazer-Nash report.

The claim as recorded

A 2022 Frazer-Nash/ESA cost-benefit report states a beam-centre design intensity of 245 W/m2 "at the centre of the rectenna," and a 2025 UK feasibility report (RAF036, Frazer-Nash/Space Solar/Imperial) separately assumes 230 W/m2 as a "power intensity limit" for a planned 2033-launch system, citing only an earlier Frazer-Nash internal report for that figure; neither document cites ICNIRP, IEEE C95.1, Ofcom, or any published exposure or interference standard for either number.

Scope and limits

Shows an absence of a standards citation, a directly confirmed finding from reading the text, not an inference about why the figure is uncited; does not establish that the figure is wrong, only that its provenance is not documented in these two current planning documents.

What it assumes

The absence is read from the full text of both documents. The 2022 report gives no source for the 245 W/m2 sentence (SRC-078 PDF p.19 and p.20), and none of its 82 pages contains ICNIRP, IEEE, C95 or Ofcom. In the 2025 report, IEEE appears only in journal citations (PDF p.14 and p.92) and Ofcom only in a footnote on frequency choices (PDF p.15, footnote 11), not for the 230 W/m2 figure.

Where it comes from

SRC-078 Study on Cost-Benefit Analysis of Space-Based Solar Power Generation for Terrestrial Energy...
SRC-076 RAF036/2425: Feasibility of Small-Scale Space Based Solar Power Systems for Early Market...
SRC-078 Study on Cost-Benefit Analysis of Space-Based Solar Power Generation for Terrestrial Energy...
SRC-076 RAF036/2425: Feasibility of Small-Scale Space Based Solar Power Systems for Early Market...
Frazer-Nash/ESA (2022), SRC-078 PDF p.19 and p.20 (the passage is printed twice; the p.20 footer reads "Page 20 of 82" and the p.19 footer misprints it as "Page 45 of 82", as do the footers of PDF p.6 to p.18): "The peak intensity of the microwave beam at the centre of the rectenna on the ground is 245 W/m2."; no source is given for that sentence. RAF036 (2025), SRC-076 PDF p.29, footnote 31: "An intensity limit of 230 W/m2 is assumed in line with Frazer-Nash's SBSP Engineering Feasibility Report".

Basis: power density, W/m2, at beam/rectenna centre; no averaging basis stated

Related records
Answers question
QST-001 not published in this release

Cite this

energyaperture.com/c/clm-0152

CLM-0152, Energy Aperture, as of 2022; 2025.

Connected records

Other published records linked to this one. A list, not a judgement.

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