Financing a First Plant
How could a first space solar plant be financed, and what does the cost of capital do to the economics?
Chapter summary
a first plant would be financed more like a national infrastructure programme than a commercial power project.
Key takeaways
- 1
It would cost tens of billions of dollars, take years to build before producing any power and face first-of-a-kind technical risk.
- 2
Private capital alone is unlikely to bear that; government funding, export credit, offtake agreements and risk-sharing structures used for nuclear and large transmission projects are the likely models.
- 3
The cost of capital matters greatly: in Setcoin's model, moving from 8% to 4% cuts the cost of electricity by about 28%.
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