This workshop will provide a forum for researchers and developers working on space solar power (SSP) topics to highlight progress and needs, to discuss these different technologies, and take necessary action toward the implementation of solar power satellites or sunsats. Workshop information will be posted on the workshop website.

Motivation: Earth’s fossil fuel reserves are limited and  we need  suitable low carbon substitutes, sometimes called renewable energy. Examples of these energy sources include solar, bio-fuel, and wind.Non-intermittent SSP has been proposed to correct this major problem with windmills and terrestrial solar collectors. 

SSP would collect solar energy in space and transmit it wirelessly to the earth. Development of this concept will further promote advances in technologies for ultra high power and frequency communication and microwave circuits, light and smart space-based structures, reliable low-cost space access techniques, photovoltaics and cis-lunar space resource development, among others.

Beyond the many previous SSP Workshops in this series, such as the December 2015 IEEE WiSEE 2015, there has been a “recent surge in interest in SSP at high levels of the U.S. government”, including at the Pentagon, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Department of State, and elsewhere, in large part because of the outcome of the recent Defense, Diplomacy, and Development (D3) Innovation Challenge. In response to Defense Secretary Ash Carter's request for ideas, the winning proposal from over 500 submissions, a space solar power concept was selected as one of six finalists and ultimately received a majority, four, of the seven possible final awards.

A US public/private committee is being assembled under this initiative and aegis,since any meaningful forward action would involve them. Committed international SSP advocates among other countries, industries and government agencies should attend. This workshop would serve in part to address this recommendation by providing a forum for relevant EU area stakeholders.