DETROIT – The biggest challenge with solar power is that it can be produced only during the day. This is also one of the major reasons why many people and industries abstain from investing in solar panels because they are not a stable source of power.

However, 26-year-old innovator and entrepreneur Ben Nowack claims to have developed a method that would allow solar energy production during the night as well.

Nowack has previously worked at SpaceX and currently, he is the CEO of Tons of Mirrors, a company that he founded with a vision to replace fossil fuels by making solar energy cheaper and more accessible than ever. Tons of Mirrors has plans to install a special setup incorporating large mirrors and a collimator device on the International Space Station (ISS). This setup on ISS would be able to redirect sunlight to solar panels on Earth during the night.

Today, with the solar panels that are out there, it’s a $20 billion-a-year industry. What I’m building is bigger than any of the markets they currently have. If this is the electric solution, and let’s say in 200 years this replaces fossil fuels, it’s a $17 trillion market,” Nowack told Vice.

The sunlight-directing setup on ISS would work as an orbital solar reflector, basically, a device that reflects sunlight to Earth while orbiting in space. Nowack is not the first person to propose this concept. The idea of an orbital solar reflector was first presented in a hearing before the US senate in 1977 and in the following years, scientists from across the globe tried to demonstrate the technique, however, none of them were able to do so.

Currently, researchers at the University of Glasgow are working on space-based satellite solar reflector technology that would enable large solar farms to have an adequate supply of sunlight during times when energy demand is at the peak. Recently, China has also announced plans to release three artificial moons in space. These satellites would be equipped with mirrors and they are said to have the potential to produce light bright enough to replace streetlights in the country by the end of this year.

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