One of the country’s largest electric utilities is looking to boost its renewable energy portfolio with solar power beamed down from outer space.

San Francisco-based Pacific Gas and Electric (NYSE:PCG) announced in April that it is seeking approval from state regulators for a power purchase agreement with space solar power startup Solaren Corp. The 15-year contract stipulates that PG&E will purchase 200 megawatts of power from the Manhattan Beach, Calif.-based company.

In Solaren’s planned system, orbiting satellites outfitted with solar cells would generate power, which would be transmitted back to Earth as radio frequency energy—in this case to a planned receiving station near Fresno, Calif.—which would then be converted to electricity.

Solar energy in space is up to 10 times greater than that on Earth, and could offer a steady source of baseload power, according to PG&E. Neither the utility nor Solaren revealed how much the project would cost, but its resultant power would be cost competitive with other baseload power sources, Solaren CEO Gary Spirnak, a former Air Force spacecraft project engineer, told PG&E’s Next100 blog. PG&E says it isn’t putting any money into the project, and is only obligated to pay for power that Solaren delivers.

Solaren says it plans to have its orbiting solar panels delivering power to PG&E customers by 2016. Though it is based on technology that has been in use for decades in communications satellites, no one has ever used the idea to generate power on Earth, Spirnak says.

A decision from state regulators may take up to six months, Solaren spokesman Calvin Boerman says. In the meantime, the startup, which is funded by private investors, doesn’t plan to pursue deals with additional utilities until it has developed its pilot project for PG&E.

“We’re going to focus on this first and make this successful,” Boerman says. “There are no guarantees.”

Reprinted with permission from SustainableIndustries.com