Rectennas

There are two main parts to a power sat, the part in space and the rectenna on the ground.

A rectenna is microwave diodes woven into a mesh much like chicken wire supported by poles containing inverters. Pending a more detailed design, I am going to use the price of PC power supplies at about $60 a kW and estimate the poles, microwave diodes and plowed in wiring to bring the cost up to $100 a kW.

The assumption is that since this does not interfere with farming, land lease cost will not be a significant factor. (Maybe we give the farmers under the mesh free electricity.) I am also not including the cost of transmission lines and for this level of analysis am not considering maintenance--which should be on a par with power transformers on poles. (The typical one runs 50 years without being touched.)

A 5 GW rectenna is still a formidable investment. 5 million kW at $100/kw is half a billion dollars. That leaves us with $300 a kW for the power sat parts, transport to orbit and construction.