The price per KW of SPS

Firstly my apologies for the length of this post, the disjointedness and
the simplicity of parts of it.

One important thing to remember in the Ground vs SPS debate is that
there is no continuing fuel costs involved in supplying the electricity.
Over the expected lifetime of either Power supply this adds up to a
great difference in the costs of each. The main cost in an SPS is in the
initial period of construction. The Cost in a conventional power station
are ( I assume ) spread out throughout its life.

I would also guess that the maintenance costs of each would be similar
for a comparable sized Power Station. SPS designs have virtually no
moving parts compared to Ground based Stations which considerably
decreases the amount of maintenance required. This is offset by the
higher cost in supplying that maintenance. ( does anyone know of
approximate costs for maintenance for conventional Ground and SPS ? )

Can someone answer these questions for me please as I don't have access
to the data for it. What is the largest sized of conventional ground
based Power Station in Output , is it in the MW or GW ? and the average
sized station. Also what is the initial capital cost of both of these
for say , coal, gas and possibly Hydro ( I am intentionally ignoring
Nuclear due to the waste disposal issue, I am also ignoring Wind and
Ground based Solar as they are not capable of supplying Base load
electricity ) and the ongoing fuel costs for gas and coal.

From what I have seen on the Web an SPS would be built to supply at
Output from Rectenna to the Grid anywhere from 1 GW up to 25 GW with 10
GW seeming to be a standard number. In Geostationary orbit from what I
have seen, it is able to supply this for 98% of the year with only a gap
of approx 1 hour per day for 22 days around the equinoxes due to eclipse
by the earth ( again if someone has more detailed information on this
can they please post - also does anyone know what local time this would
approximately coincide with at the rectenna station ? I would assume
around midnight but am not sure )

If the power supply from the SPS is aimed at the supplying Base Load,
then it would be utilized at approximately 85 - 95% of the time. The
Peak demand of power can then be supplied by smaller conventional power
stations which are fired up on demand, and coincidentally be used to
supply the power for the other 2 % of the year.

Here in Australia we pay at home between 8 c / kwh ( all currency is in
Australian $ ) and 25 c / kwh depending on where we live and the usage
of the electricity. This cost covers the generation of the power, and
the construction and maintenance of the Power lines. For the SPS I would
suggest aiming the market not at the consumer but at the current
electricity suppliers. by this I mean sell the electricity from the
Rectenna station direct to the Companies that look after the Power lines
and current Power Stations. I suggest this for two reasons, One is
demand is continually outstripping supply, and secondly there are older
stations that are going to need replacement on a regular basis.

If we can aim to supply this Electricity at an initial cost of around 10
- 11c / kwh and then later once more SPS are set up and the cost
involved drop, we can lower this to around 5 c / kwh. For the last
couple of years Australian Electricity consumers have been given the
opportunity to pay a few cents more for their electricity and have it
sourced from "Green" Power Supplies. The demand for this scheme is so
great that the Electricity companies have a much greater demand for
Green Power than they can supply, which is leading to a number of
projects in this area. ( for those interested in this scheme you can
choose the % of your electricity to come from Green Power, thus allowing
for everyone to help with the environmental cause, even if it is only on
a small basis. This came about from a Government initiative a couple of
years ago, mainly to do with Kyoto from memory )

Now at 10 c / kwh and taking a single SPS supply 10 GW we have ( If
someone spots a mistake here feel free to correct and the figures are
rounded a little )

10 GW x 24 Hours x 365 days x 98 % of sunlight x 85% worst case usage =
total power supplied which gives
7.297 x 10 ^ 13 Wh assuming I haven't stuffed up somewhere which gives
7.297 x 10 ^ 10 Kwh multiply this by 10 c or $0.10 gives
$ 7,297,080,000 ( Australian Dollars ) income Per Year
now take the average lifespan of a Power Station to be 25 years and you get
$ 182,427,000,000

Which is sure to be a little more than what it cost to build in the
first place even allowing for it to be the first one and the usual cost
overruns that go with that. And the cost of maintenance would not change
the figures much. To cover the possibility that we can't sell all the
electricity we should take a percentage of that , but I'll let someone
else work that out. Even if it turns out that the first one cost more
than this, try changing the rate to 15c/ kwh and see what a difference
that makes. as long as the public perception is there , and it is most
likely to be for the next few years, then people would be happy to pay
this in the short term, remembering that the electricity company we
supply the Power to would have their own costs and profit to maintain,
and that the costs will go down.

Now add to that the fact that in 1995/96 Australia consumed 1,248,711 GW
of electricity, which is 142.54 GW generating capacity on average. (
Unfortunately I have lost track of the book where these figures come
from,they were part of a course I did at one stage a couple of years ago
) and you get the idea of the size of the available market, and this has
increased since then. I don't have reliable figures for the US, Europe,
India and China whose markets are growing very rapidly , but you get the
idea. Even if you managed to capture only 20 % of the market in
Australia, you are talking about a lot of money. Capture 20 % of the
World market, and you are talking about a phenomenal amount of money.
And of course you would not stop at one SPS but continue building them,
as your experience and infrastructure for manufacture increase, the cost
per SPS will drop and you can supply the electricity for cheaper and
gain a larger market share ( In Theory ) As it is the First one will
be the Hardest and most expensive to build, particularly as most of it
would probably be done here on Earth. Once it is proven and Money starts
coming in , then you can build more and more components using the Moon
and Neos, and work your way up to an Island One as a manufacturing base.
I would envision that once the first few are out the way , you would be
aiming at a supply rate of 1 new SPS at least every 6 months. At that
rate , it will still take a Number of years to Saturate the Market, and
then you can move the production to other things while still providing
the occasional SPS for earth.

Now for the Downside. As Tom said we need accurate figures for
maintenance, building and assembly. And for various scenarios, eg
initially earth built, and then built with moon, and Neos etc and
maintenance by human and / or Telerobotics.
For comparison, we should also find those figures for conventional power
stations, with Fuel cost added in.

You may wonder why I am focussed on the money side of things, well with
these sorts of income and profits you can do a lot of other things, like
island 1's , Space Tourism, Moon bases, even a Mars Trip on the side
etc. All you need is somewhere to Start. Once One company has built an
SPS there no doubt will be more springing up, even so it is a Very Large
Market, and it will help open up more markets in other areas.

Now I'll hand it over to someone else who can rip all my assumptions to
bits no doubt ;) still it is nice to dream.

NB: The cost for electricity that I used are ones that I have paid at
various places I have lived. The other figures come from various places
which I have lost track of since the course I did in which I first came
across them , my apologies I know that isn't good science, but for a
rough estimate they will do, I was just lucky that I had some of my
notes with the figures in them.