The US Dept. of Energy has declared solar concentrators to be the lowest-cost source of solar electricity. Consider a Solar Concentrator Beam Power Satellite (SCBPS), which uses parabolic mirrors to focus sunlight on a heat block, generates electricity, converts it to microwave energy and then transmits it to an ARMXER Orbital Skyhook to facilitate spacefaring industries.

The available sunlight in space is about 1366 watts/sq.meter, so a constellation of SCBPS powerplants would admittedly consist of dozens of very large parabolic mirrors, each perhaps hundreds of meters across. But space is so vast, it can accommodate anything, no matter how big. And the simplicity of the design might win the case against other options such as nuclear power or photovoltaics. A simple wire-mesh dish design with paper-thin, reflective-coated plating. It would be vulnerable to micrometeorite erosion, but easy and inexpensive to repair. At the focal point, a heat block, robust, low-maintenance, thermocouple electric generator. It would not reflect sunlight onto the Earth from a distance, rather concentrate the sunlight first, generate power and use a microwave transmitter to deliver power to orbiting facilities.....

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