this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2026
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What do you mean by "shaded"?
And I think the idea is to have several satellites taking turns at illuminating a given target. Your diesel generator (actually nuclear power plants where I live) will have to turn on anyway without these additional sources, but they lower the need.
Until they reach the endgame of being able to produce continuous illumination all night long.
I mean just that. Rows of solar panels on flat roofs or ground mounts are spaced just far enough apart that when beam illumination hits them that there are normally no shade from one row to the next... but that assumes that the light is coming from a well-known band of locations in the sky where the sun is. Strong differences in illumination cause PV to work as well as the lowest irradiance level, and in the case of beam-reflected irradiance from a rapidly moving source location that won't be restricted to "where the sun usually is" and because there will basically be no significant diffuse irradiance from the satellite mirrors the arrays will frequently be suffering from unexpected shade which will make them terrible at converting the reflected light.