China is racing to turn a long imagined science fiction concept into hardware: a gigawatt scale solar power plant in orbit that would beam electricity back to Earth. The project would rely on a vast array of photovoltaic panels in geostationary orbit, converting sunlight into microwaves or lasers and transmitting that energy to ground receivers. If it works at the scale officials are now discussing, it could reshape both the global energy system and the balance of power in space.
The ambition fits a broader pattern in which Beijing treats clean energy and orbital infrastructure as strategic industries, from giant terrestrial solar farms to experimental space stations. A gigawatt class space plant would extend that strategy above the atmosphere, where sunlight is constant and clouds never get in the way, and it would test whether space can become a practical source of baseload power rather than a distant dream.
From early concepts to a 1 km array in geostationary orbit
China’s space based solar power agenda has been building for more than a decade, but recent plans point to a step change in scale. Officials and researchers now describe a one kilometre wide solar array in geostationary orbit about 36,000 km above the Earth, designed to generate power on the order of gigawatts and beam it to a rectifying antenna on the ground. One analysis likens the project to moving the Three Gorges Dam into orbit at 36,000 km above the Earth, a comparison that underlines how a space plant of this size would rival the country’s largest hydropower asset as a strategic energy source and would turn space into a new kind of grid connected infrastructure.
That orbital array would sit in the same broad family of Space Based Solar Power (often shortened to SBSP) concepts that engineers have debated since the 1970s, but China is now treating SBSP as a concrete engineering program rather than a thought experiment. Commentators describe the 1 km solar array as a kind of “Manhattan Project of energy,” a signal that Beijing sees space power as a national priority on par with its biggest domestic dams and its push for massive onshore and offshore solar farms. The vision aligns with the country’s wider profile as a clean energy heavyweight, visible in everything from its role in global photovoltaic manufacturing to the way a simple search for China now surfaces its dominance in renewables and large scale infrastructure projects.
Test beds in LEO and GEO before a gigawatt plant
Before any gigawatt class station can operate, Chinese planners are working through a ladder of smaller demonstrations in orbit. Technical papers associated with CAST, the China Academy of Space Technology, describe a sequence in which China aims for a space based solar power test in LEO in 2028 and a follow on experiment in GEO in 2030, using those missions to validate power conversion, beam steering and thermal control. The idea is to start with tens or hundreds of kilowatts in low Earth orbit, then scale up in geostationary orbit once engineers understand how large flexible arrays behave and how efficiently they can transmit energy to a ground station.
On the ground, national science and technology agencies are already funding hardware that would feed into those orbital tests. A program highlighted by the National Center for Science and Technology Information describes a phased path in which researchers first assemble a modular array, then expand it to generate over 100 k of power and test medium power laser transmission to a receiving station that converts microwaves back to electricity. That same initiative, detailed in an English language summary of how China looks set to build a space solar power station, shows how the country is knitting together space engineering, power electronics and laser physics into a single roadmap rather than treating them as isolated experiments.
How a gigawatt space plant would actually work
At the heart of the plan is a simple but radical idea: collect sunlight where it is strongest and most reliable, then send it down as controllable energy. In the Chinese concept, a vast photovoltaic array in GEO would convert solar radiation into direct current, feed that into high frequency microwave or laser transmitters, and beam the energy to a rectifying antenna on the ground that turns it back into grid compatible electricity. Earlier proposals from China’s Academy of Space Technology described converting solar energy into electricity in space before beaming it back to Earth using a microwave link, and even suggested that lightweight tiles could be used on the receiving side to keep the ground infrastructure manageable.
Engineers expect the orbital collectors to be kilometres in size and constructed in space, assembled piece by piece over repeated launches and dockings in a way that echoes how JAXA once described an SSP being built. Social media posts that highlight how China is building the world’s first orbital solar power plant stress that the collectors would sit in geostationary orbit at 36,000 km and would have to manage the power of the signals coming down so they are strong enough to be useful but safe for anything that passes through the beam. That balance between intensity and safety is one reason the early test beds focus on medium power laser transmission and careful beam control rather than jumping straight to gigawatt levels.
Why Beijing is betting on SBSP and how it fits its energy strategy
For Beijing, the attraction of space based solar power is not just technological bravado, it is about energy security and industrial leadership. Analysts who track why China is developing SBSP point to a rough timeline that starts with early studies around 2008 and runs through a series of ground tests, subscale prototypes and planned orbital demos, all framed as a way to secure clean baseload power without the land use and intermittency constraints of terrestrial renewables. In that reading, SBSP is a logical extension of a strategy that already includes the world’s largest onshore solar farms, aggressive wind deployment and a growing fleet of nuclear reactors.
The country’s track record on large solar projects gives some weight to that argument. A memorandum of understanding between First Solar and the Chinese government once laid out plans for what was then billed as the world’s largest solar power plant in China, with multiple phases culminating in a massive desert installation. More recently, China has brought the world’s first 1 GW offshore solar farm online, a project described in detail with images credited to China State Construction and reporting that notes 48 Comments reacting to the scale of each enormous solar platform. When I look at that progression, from desert arrays to floating gigawatt platforms, a gigawatt class orbital plant starts to look less like an outlier and more like the next rung on a very tall ladder.
Global race, technical hurdles and what comes next
China is not the only country to explore orbital solar power, but it is moving faster and with more centralized backing than most of its peers. Commentators sympathetic to Beijing’s approach argue that China is making the once sci fi dream of space based solar power a reality and leaving the West scrambling to keep up, framing the solar space station as a game changer in renewable energy and a symbol of how far the country has come in space technology. That narrative sits alongside a broader industry push in which Space Based Photovoltaics, often shortened to SBPV, Emerges as the Dominant Theme for New Energy Sector discussions in 2026, especially in Beijing, where companies and policymakers talk about SBPV as a pillar of the emerging extra terrestrial new energy (EENE) industry.
Yet the technical and political hurdles remain formidable. Even advocates concede that an SSP would be assembled piece by piece over repeated launches and dockings, with each segment adding complexity and cost, and that the construct would require advanced robotics, in orbit servicing and highly reliable power beaming. Early Chinese proposals suggested putting a smaller solar farm in space by 2025, converting solar energy into electricity in orbit and sending it down to Earth, but those timelines have already slipped as engineers confront the realities of materials, thermal management and launch economics. At the same time, the country’s broader space and energy posture, visible in everything from its expanding presence in low Earth orbit to the way official portals describe how China looks set to build a space solar power station, suggests that the political will behind SBSP is not fading.
From concept art to contested orbits
One reason the gigawatt plant idea attracts so much attention is that it sits at the intersection of climate policy, industrial strategy and geopolitics. Commentators who call China’s 1 km solar array the Manhattan Project of energy are not only talking about engineering difficulty, they are also invoking the sense of a national crash program with global consequences. In that framing, putting a power station in geostationary orbit at 36,000 km above the Earth is as much about shaping the rules of space as it is about decarbonizing the grid, especially if the plant’s beam can deliver electricity to partner countries that sign on to Chinese standards and hardware.
For now, the project still lives mostly in technical papers, policy speeches and concept art, even as ground tests ramp up and offshore gigawatt farms prove that the country can deliver huge renewable projects at scale. I see the next few years, particularly the planned LEO and GEO demonstrations tied to CAST and the incremental expansion to over 100 k of transmitted power, as the real inflection point. If those tests show that SBSP can be built and operated safely, then the idea of a gigawatt space solar plant beaming power back to Earth will shift from a bold headline to a live policy question for every government that has to decide how comfortable it is with another nation’s energy infrastructure hanging permanently over the equator.
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