RANGE EXTENSION FOR E-BIRDS/SHIPS
BACKGROUND
Conventional thinking indicates that developments in battery technologies will eventually deliver significant increases in energy density. But energy density will need to increase 10-fold to deliver commercially useful ranges for electric trucks, aircraft and ships. These sorts of improvements to energy density are simply not predicted to happen even by the most optimistic proponents of current battery technologies. For electric aviation the problems are even more acute than for trucks and ships. Even if there are big technological improvements in battery storage & hydrogen tanks, these solutions cannot work in the context of e-aviation because they’re simply too heavy. For e-aviation, maximum takeoff weight is the limiting factor, so when a lot of battery packs or hydrogen tanks are installed in an electric aircraft, net payload dramatically decreases, which means that the e-aircraft can carry fewer passengers or less cargo, thus reducing profitability substantially.
To be commercially viable, electric aviation needs to solve one of the biggest challenges in aviation. Either solve the problem of energy density, which the graphs tell us is at least a generation away based upon current technologies, or find another solution. Our solution for e-aviation not only delivers better savings in CO2 emissions when compared to existing battery solutions, but can considerably improve safety, by carrying less fuel & batteries in the first place, delivering higher net payloads for better efficiency and with fewer technical stops. How do we achieve this? Through our unique approach – SKYCHARGE™
ABSTRACT
Space-based solar power (SBSP), wireless power transmission (WPT) & electric aircraft are rapidly-developing technologies all making their ways out of the realms of scientific fiction, almost at same time!
Our research proposes to align the above mentioned technologies during a 10-20 year period to deliver long range electric mobility in air, sea and on the ground, without having to carry huge fuel tanks or battery storage arrays.
Electric Aviation can be not only CLEAN aviation, but much more EFFICIENT & SAFE aviation
We believe E-aviation should be able to solve one of the biggest challenges in conventional aviation! It’s no longer only about zero emission flights, but can considerably improve safety by carrying less fuel & fewer batteries, delivering more efficient flights, increasing net payloads & requiring fewer technical stops! But HOW? Simply by SKYCHARGE™-ing aircraft during flights!
SKYCHARGE™
We are developing technologies towards full Commercial Readiness within the next 10-20 years but the key technologies already exist and are well understood. We already have space-based solar stations designed and launched in early 2023 in Geosynchronous (GEO) orbit (35,786 km), which harvest solar energy using ultra-light, high efficiency PV modules, converting this solar power to Radio Frequency (RF) power transmission, and delivering clean energy to ground-based or mobile rectenna potentially at the scale of gigawatts. These systems use microwave beams in the 8-10 GHz range, which are non-ionizing in nature and with intensities that are lower even than sunlight, so the systems are clean, safe, efficient and have been calculated to be price-competitive with ground-based solar power. Whilst these space-based solar stations are expensive to install in GEO orbits, they generate energy 24/7 at much higher efficiencies than ground-based arrays, due to lack of reflection and absorption by the atmosphere and a better constant orientation towards the sun. But if we have more economic orbits like LEO where hundreds of Starlink satellites are currently operating, that could be a fraction of the costs. It’s possible to have highly economic satellites in specially-designed LEO orbits to enable power generation more than 60-70% of the time or to be receiving power beamed from GEO solar stations and acting as relays to send the power onwards by utilizing state of the art technology to lock energy beams to E-birds along their flight paths. This is SKYCHARGE™. To cover the whole North Atlantic area (containing many of the most common commercial flight paths), we require c. 16-24 LEO satellites flying in 500 km orbits, using a smart communication systems to receive energy demand signals from a E-birds/E-ships, selecting the closest satellite & sending a locked microwave energy beam to a rectenna on the aircraft (1-3m diameter depending on aircraft type & charging power requirement), convert to DC and charge the onboard battery arrays. This approach will remove the need to carry tons of battery storage or fuel, provides (theoretically) limitless range and removes the need for technical stops, resulting in significant improvements in net payload and safety. All this has the potential to revolutionize the whole aviation and shipping industries, not just by drastically reducing emissions, but through vast improvements in efficiency & safety. This is possible due to our innovative solution: SKYCHARGE™
SKYCHARGE™ major components:
- Some GEO based solar stations to generate power (can be developed by our group or we can utilize existing systems built by industry leaders).
- A network of LEO sats to generate and receive power and build SKYCHARGE™ zone(s) of operation, manage charge storage and distribution including communication between satellites and relaying energy to E-birds/Ships which require power delivery, locking on & sending energy beam to receivers with the required number of LEO satellites in a SKYCHARGE™ zone dependent upon the area to be covered.
- Rectenna modules on E-birds/Ships to receive energy and convert to DC usable energy.
We have an EXECUTIVE PLAN to make this happen!
SKYCHARGE SERVICES CORPORATION is an energy company whose mission is to keep heavy duty vehicles charged in the coming years!