Photovoltaics has been powering the imaginary universes of science fiction for decades. Scenarios that reality seeks to imitate, through technological innovation. EF Solare Italia, as the leading PV operator in Italy, places hisselves as a technological leader.
SOLAR … AND STELLAR ENERGY: PHOTOVOLTAICS AND SCIENCE FICTION
Photovoltaics has been powering the imaginary universes of science fiction for decades: novels and movies set among the stars abound in spaceships and buildings whose functioning is based on solar energy – or rather, stellar. Scenarios that reality seeks to imitate, through technological innovation, in view of the ever-increasing contribution asked of renewables to meet global energy demand.
The recent announcement by the Chinese space agency of a project to launch an orbiting photovoltaic system by 2050 has caused quite a stir, and also a certain skepticism. The greatest difficulty remains, in fact, the transmission of the energy collected to the ground, which is assumed will take place via a laser or microwave beam. The hypothesis is anything but new: the father of science fiction literature Isaac Asimov in “Reason” had theorized it, a short story of 1941!
Fifteen years later, Asimov gave orbiting photovoltaics a central role with the story “The Last Question”, where a station of a mile in diameter, orbiting halfway between the Earth and the Moon, allows humankind to completely decommission power generation from fossil sources and start an era of galactic development and expansion for humanity. An idea that, as it may seem unattainable, was instead argued for in reality, at a design level, by a Japanese company in 2013.
Not only the great ones of literature, but also those of movies and television have included generation from solar energy in their works. Already in the first film of the famous Star Wars saga, in 1977, appeared the TIE imperial starfighters, whose wings covered with solar panels which allowed it to power its ionic engines for propulsion, while in “The War of the Clones”, of 2008, you can see an elegant stellar yacht pushed by solar sails, capable of capturing also subatomic particles and emissions in addition to light.
Solar sails also appear in the “rival” Star Trek saga, where they are used by the Bajorans to capture the tachyon emissions present in their area of space. Curiously, actor William Shatner, who played Captain Kirk in the original series, served as a testimonial for a Californian company two years ago by installing their domestic photovoltaic system at his home.
Also in videogames the solar generation finds room: in Fallout New Vegas, a chapter of the popular futuristic dystopian series set in Nevada, one of the places that the player can explore is the plant in solar concentration Helios One, inspired by the structure of the existing SOLAR Project in Spain and by the location of that of Nevada Solar One.
Those that we have told are just some famous examples of how photovoltaics are part of the collective imagination of the future and space exploration, but many more could be mentioned.
However, technological innovation and the growth of solar energy generation are a reality, and we at EF Solare Italia, as the leading photovoltaic operator in Italy, place ourselves as a technological leader to drive the consolidation and growth of the sector through operational excellence, technological innovation and the development of new plants.