A team of researchers from the Instituto de Telecomunicações, of the Department of Electronics, Telecommunications and Informatics (DETI), and the Physics Department (DFis) of University of Aveiro, together with the Institute of Electronics and Telematics Engineering of Aveiro (IEETA) and Institute of Materials of Aveiro (CICECO), develops energy project to supply the lunar station. The first prototype is already under construction.

With funding from the European Space Agency (ESA), the project led by Nuno Borges de Carvalho foresees the construction of a set of satellites that, after being placed in orbit on the Moon, must capture solar energy and transfer it to a lunar station. Solar panels attached to satellites and coated with luminescent materials will generate electricity more efficiently than the simple solar panels used on Earth today.

This energy, explains Nuno Borges de Carvalho, will be stored in batteries until the satellite is closer to the lunar station. At this point, "energy will be beamed to the lunar station through antennas and focused by lenses to reduce spillover losses." In this way, “it will be possible to supply energy to lunar stations even during the long lunar night”. “One day on the Moon is 15 days on Earth”. That is, a lunar station will always be subject to 15 days of light followed by 15 days of darkness. With solar panels rotating on the satellite, energy capture is permanent as the panels are always facing the Sun and the antennas, to discharge energy, always face the Moon."

Nuno Borges de Carvalho adds that this energy capture now being implemented in Space could be adapted to Earth.

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