Value chain · CLM-1429
In plain terms
A search on 13 October 2026 found no published model of Britain's power system that is free to decide how much space solar power to build. One British government study valued small space solar plants in a model by scaling down a much larger assumed plant; the only free-choice model found covers the whole of Europe.
The claim as recorded
No published, peer-reviewed or government-published capacity-expansion or whole-system study of the Great Britain power system in which space-based solar power is a technology the model can choose to build was located in a search on 2026-10-13. The one GB whole-energy-system run found, the 2025 RAF036/2425 report for the UK government, compares two small-system scenarios (52 MW, or 104 MW in a dawn-and-dusk case, each for a 2040 system) with a run without space solar in Imperial College's whole-energy-system model on a 2035 background, and calculates their whole-system benefit by scaling down a notional 1 GW system; the pages read do not describe the model choosing the space solar capacity. A 2024 online profile of an Imperial study on a 2050 scenario gives no model detail or figures. Beyond Great Britain alone, the only capacity-expansion study found in which the model can choose space solar power is the 2025 Joule study of Europe, in which Great Britain is two of 37 nodes.
Evidence behind this: T0-ANALYSIS, so no CALC is owed: this record DERIVES NO NUMBER. An absence finding from a dated search on 2026-10-13 (method and venues in limits), with the one partial GB study it found. Its figures (52 MW, 104 MW, 1 GW, 2035, 2040, 37 nodes) are read from SRC-076 and SRC-264, not computed here.
Scope and limits
A negative finding from a dated search, not proof that no such study exists. Scope, all on 2026-10-13: general web search (13 queries); OpenAlex (keyword searches, including Chinese and Japanese terms, and the 9 works citing the Joule paper); and Semantic Scholar (12 citing works; its keyword search stopped at HTTP 429). Google Scholar, Scopus and Web of Science were not used; government sites were reached through web search only; Korean, German and French were not searched; unindexed grey literature, including Imperial's own unpublished report, cannot be excluded. NOT OBTAINED: two 2026 Nature Reviews pieces citing the Joule paper (Wang and others; He and Gao), a 2026 system-dynamics paper on space solar microgrids (Ghaffar) and a 2026 SSRN dispatch paper (Xu and others), any of which might report modelling; unread, so not counted either way. Two narrower optimisation papers were found and not counted as capacity-expansion studies: Vasile and others (2010, abstract only; a simplified space-plus-ground plant mix against one day of demand) and Qaid and others (2025, CLM-0800; orbiting reflectors on a nine-bus test network). SRC-297 records an Imperial whole-energy-system award whose report was not found. A 22 January 2024 Open Access Government profile by Imperial authors (not in the register) says only that its study used a 'future energy scenario' for the 2050 system and that, with optimal system planning, space solar does not compete directly with nuclear power; it gives no method or figures, whether it reports the funded study was not established, and it is not counted as a published study. Figures quoted elsewhere for Imperial work (a 2024 magazine article and a 2026 advocacy whitepaper) are unreferenced and were not used. The RAF036 study is advocate-adjacent (SRC-076 is T4, ADV): Frazer-Nash Consultancy wrote it, and its partners were Imperial College London and Space Solar Engineering Ltd (SRC-076 PDF p.2), and it takes Space Solar's small-scale system as its reference design (SRC-076 PDF p.13). Its benefits are calculated by scaling down a notional system with 1 GW output; the report notes that if the marginal benefit (the benefit of each added megawatt) falls as capacity grows, this understates the small system's benefit (SRC-076 PDF p.40).
What it assumes
No assumptions are recorded against this claim.
Where it comes from
PDF p.2 (paraphrase): Frazer-Nash Consultancy ran the study, and its partners were Imperial College London and Space Solar Engineering Ltd; PDF p.13 (paraphrase): the study takes forward Space Solar's small-scale system as its reference design; PDF p.39 (paraphrase): the model is set to the GB energy system in 2035 and uses the UK rectenna energy profiles to find the capacity of other generators that space solar displaces; PDF p.40 and p.42 (paraphrase): benefits are given for 52 MW (a 2040 system, Scenario 3) and 104 MW (Scenario 4), and the impact is calculated by scaling down a notional 1 GW system; PDF p.92 (paraphrase): a system without space solar is the counterfactual, and IWES is a least-cost investment and operation model across electricity, heat and hydrogen with interconnection to Europe; PDF p.93 (paraphrase): the energy system modelling is provided by Imperial College London's wholly owned consultancy. SRC-264 PDF p.12 and p.13 (paraphrase): the model has 37 nodes, from 33 countries with Great Britain, Spain, Italy and Denmark given two nodes each; PDF p.16 (paraphrase): each node has an extendable space solar generator whose capacity the model sets. SRC-297 records Imperial College London's GBP 295,194 award for "Whole-energy system integration of space-based solar power in the UK"; it gives no model detail or results.
Basis: N/A (an absence-of-evidence claim, not a cost figure)
Related records
- Answers question
- QST-021 not published in this release
Cite this
energyaperture.com/c/clm-1429
CLM-1429, Energy Aperture, as of 2026-10.
Connected records
Other published records linked to this one. A list, not a judgement.
- Also from SRC-076
- CLM-0018The most recent UK government report calls 230 watts per square metre a limit to be reached because it lowers cost, and cites an earlier...CLM-0019The report sets out Space Solar's plan: a small in-orbit test, then 31 megawatts in 2030, 150 megawatts in 2033, and 650 megawatts in...CLM-0152Two UK industry planning documents, from 2022 and 2025, each state a beam-intensity design figure in the 230-245 watts-per-square-metre...CLM-0213The study assumes that connecting a ground receiving site to the electricity grid costs about GBP 150,000 for every megawatt of power the...CLM-0214Six different solar-power-satellite designs each claim that turning the electricity collected on the ground into grid-ready power is 90 to...CLM-0215Any UK ground receiving station that wants to connect to the electricity grid must be able to supply or absorb a type of power called...CLM-0216The UK's fast-response grid support services need a generator to react within seconds, at any moment over a 4-hour period. A ground...CLM-0503Under the international radio rules as revised at the 2023 world radio conference, there is no radio-frequency allocation for beaming power...More on the source page.
- Also from SRC-264
- CLM-0286A 2025 peer-reviewed study modelled space solar power inside a detailed model of Europe's future electricity system, using the more...CLM-0843Other research groups around the world are publishing on space solar power, but none of the works this search found takes a position on the...CLM-1476The European study states that it used a 3 per cent interest rate for the cost of the space solar satellites. It does not say, in the paper...
- Also from SRC-297
- CLM-0287In 2023 and 2024, the UK government awarded about GBP 5.5 million in grants to 9 projects to develop space-based solar power technology and...CLM-0515Nearly half of the grant money the UK government announced in 2023 and 2024 for its space-based solar power innovation competition was...CLM-0516Public money funded a real piece of hardware that was built and tested, not just another report -- a rare outcome in this field -- even...
- Cited in articles