Europe Day spotlight: APACE tests a bio-inspired route to space-based solar power under EIC Pathfinder

Brussels, May 9th 2026

Summary

›APACE aims to turn diffuse sunlight into a coherent laser using photosynthetic antenna complexes.
›The EIC Pathfinder project is funded with about 3.4 million euros and runs from October 2024 to September 2028.
›The team claims at least a hundredfold efficiency gain over existing sunlight-pumped lasers, which remains to be validated beyond the lab.
›Potential applications include in-orbit hydrogen generation and wireless laser power transmission, but space hardening, safety and regulatory hurdles are significant.
›The consortium spans Italy, Poland, Germany and the UK, highlighting cross-border collaboration on Europe Day.

A Europe Day case study in cross-border deep tech: APACE and the promise of bio-inspired space energy

Europe Day, held each year on 9 May, marks the 1950 Schuman Declaration and the EU’s foundational bet on practical cooperation. Against that backdrop, the European Innovation Council is showcasing APACE, a Pathfinder-funded research effort that blends biology, physics and space engineering. The project’s central proposition is audacious. Use molecular machinery inspired by photosynthesis to convert unfocused sunlight directly into laser light that can power space infrastructure.

What APACE is trying to prove

Space stations and in-orbit platforms face a simple arithmetic problem. Energy demand keeps rising while conventional solar panels approach practical efficiency limits and impose large surface area, mass and degradation constraints. APACE proposes a different conversion pathway that could complement photovoltaics. Instead of generating electricity through semiconductor junctions, it aims to generate a coherent beam inside an optical cavity that can then be routed to where power is needed.

Photosynthetic antenna complexes:These are nanoscale structures in bacteria that absorb photons and transfer the captured energy between pigment molecules with near unity efficiency. Nature uses them to funnel energy toward reaction centers. APACE seeks to co-opt this funneling to feed a lasing process.

Engineered photosynthetic antenna as gain medium:The project attaches lasing units based on engineered molecular systems or doped nanocrystals to bacterial antenna complexes. Dispersed in a polymer matrix or solution and placed in an optical cavity, this supramolecular mixture forms the gain medium where stimulated emission can occur under sunlight pumping.

Sunlight-pumped laser under unconcentrated light:Most sunlight-pumped lasers historically require optical concentrators to reach lasing thresholds. APACE targets operation under diffuse natural sunlight without concentration. The team asserts at least two orders of magnitude higher efficiency compared to existing sunlight-pumped laser designs, if their bio-inspired gain medium achieves the expected energy funneling and low-threshold lasing.

Potential applications in orbit:A sunlight-pumped laser could drive electrolysis for hydrogen generation, support wireless power transmission within a station or between spacecraft, and possibly beam energy to ground via infrared lasers. In the long run the team imagines in situ fabrication on permanent stations, with scalability approaching that of photovoltaic arrays.

Who is involved and how it is funded

APACE is coordinated by the Università degli Studi di Firenze in Italy and is funded through the EIC Pathfinder Challenges programme under Horizon Europe. The consortium includes research partners in Italy, Poland, Germany and the United Kingdom. UK participation reflects the country’s association to Horizon Europe, which enables UK institutions to join EU research projects. The project aligns with the EIC Pathfinder mission to back high-risk, high-gain ideas typically at low technology readiness levels, where success is uncertain but upside could be substantial.

Item	Detail	Source
Project	APACE	EIC Community and CORDIS
Grant agreement ID	101161312	CORDIS
Programme	Horizon Europe – EIC Pathfinder Challenges	CORDIS
Topic	HORIZON-EIC-2023-PATHFINDERCHALLENGES-01-05 In-space solar energy harvesting for innovative space applications	CORDIS
EC signature date	13 June 2024	CORDIS
Start	1 October 2024	CORDIS
End	30 September 2028	CORDIS
Total cost	€ 3,398,692.50	CORDIS
EU contribution	€ 3,398,692.50	CORDIS
Coordinator	Università degli Studi di Firenze, Italy	EIC Community and CORDIS
Consortium countries	Italy, Poland, Germany, United Kingdom	EIC Community
Policy trackers	Digital agenda 40% \| Climate action 40%	CORDIS policy priority trackers

How the concept works, in more detail

From photon capture to stimulated emission:Under sunlight, pigment molecules in the antenna complexes absorb photons and create excitations that hop across the complex. By coupling these excitations into nearby lasing units with appropriate energy levels and fast non-radiative transfer, APACE aims to accumulate population inversion in the lasing units within an optical cavity, enabling stimulated emission.

Optical cavity and thresholds:A laser requires a cavity that provides feedback and a gain medium whose amplification exceeds losses. Under unconcentrated solar irradiance, the pump power density is low. The project’s bet is that bio-inspired antennae will concentrate excitation efficiently enough at the molecular scale to reduce lasing thresholds and cavity loss constraints.

Why coherence could help in space power systems:A coherent beam can be directed with high precision using lightweight optics and optical fibers. In principle this allows routing power across a station or to distant receivers without heavy cabling. It also supports point-to-point wireless power transfer, which is appealing for free-flying assets that cannot easily deploy large arrays.

Claims, caveats and the path from lab to orbit

The claim of at least a hundredfold efficiency improvement over prior sunlight-pumped laser designs should be viewed in context. Historical sunlight-pumped lasers have shown very low overall solar-to-laser conversion under one sun without concentration. A hundredfold improvement could still leave end-to-end efficiencies that are lower than mature multi-junction photovoltaics when all system losses are included. As with many Pathfinder projects, the near-term milestones are about physical feasibility rather than system competitiveness.

Material stability in space:Photosynthetic complexes and organic gain media can suffer photobleaching, radiation damage and thermal degradation. Space environments add vacuum ultraviolet exposure, high-energy particles and temperature cycling. Demonstrating a space-hardened bio-inspired gain medium is a non-trivial materials challenge.

Cavity performance and alignment:Low-threshold lasing under diffuse sunlight will require cavities with low losses and stable alignment. Vibrations, thermal expansion and contamination can degrade performance. Compact cavity designs that are robust to mechanical and thermal perturbations will be essential.

Wireless power transmission realities:Infrared laser beaming faces pointing accuracy demands, atmospheric attenuation for any Earth link, and safety concerns for eyes, aircraft and satellites. Even in space-to-space scenarios, tracking and beam control add complexity. Regulatory coordination would be required for any Earth-directed power beams, and operational concepts would need to meet stringent safety standards.

Competing or complementary technologies:High-efficiency multi-junction photovoltaics continue to improve and are well understood in space. Microwave and laser power beaming concepts are also being explored, including studies by ESA on space-based solar power. APACE will need to show clear niches where coherent light generation from sunlight is advantageous in mass, reliability or integration terms.

Potential use	What must be proven	Key risk
In-orbit hydrogen generation	Stable continuous-wave operation and efficient coupling into electrolysis	Photostability and thermal management of the gain medium
Intra-station power routing	Compact cavity designs and efficient beam-to-electric receivers	Alignment stability and conversion losses at the receiver
Space-to-space power beaming	High-precision tracking and safe inter-satellite links	Pointing errors and safety interlocks
Space-to-Earth beaming	Atmospheric window optimization and ground safety protocols	Regulatory constraints and public acceptance

Project timeline and milestones to watch

APACE runs from October 2024 to September 2028. The early period is likely to focus on gain medium design, photophysics and cavity prototypes. Later phases should move toward integrated demonstrations. For stakeholders tracking progress, useful indicators will include operation under one sun without external concentrators, measured solar-to-laser conversion efficiency, degradation rates under accelerated radiation and thermal cycling, and any steps toward a space-relevant demonstrator such as a CubeSat payload or parabolic flight test.

Consortium perspective

Giuseppe Luca Ceraldo of the University of Florence frames APACE as a deeply interdisciplinary push. He highlights the convergence of laser physics, quantum biology, organic chemistry and space engineering around photosynthetic antennas to capture sunlight and direct it by converting it into a laser beam. That level of ambition matches Pathfinder’s remit, but the work will be judged on empirical milestones rather than vision alone.

Where APACE fits in the EU innovation landscape

EIC Pathfinder supports early-stage ideas that may unlock new technological trajectories but are too speculative for conventional calls. The APACE topic sits within the 2023 Pathfinder Challenges on in-space solar energy harvesting. Policy trackers attribute the project 40 percent to the Digital agenda and 40 percent to Climate action categories. If the team can validate low-threshold lasing under unconcentrated sunlight and show credible pathways to space hardening, the concept could inform future EU efforts on space-based energy and in-orbit servicing. If not, the research may still generate useful advances in excitonics, nanocrystal doping strategies and cavity design.

Europe Day context and public engagement

Europe Day is both a commemoration and a public-facing moment. In 2026 institutions opened their doors across Brussels, Strasbourg, Luxembourg and Frankfurt. The anniversary also marked 40 years since Spain and Portugal joined the EU and 40 years since the first official Europe Day celebrations with the EU flag and anthem. Spotlighting cross-border projects like APACE is part of that narrative of cooperation. It also underscores the EU’s approach to funding research across borders, including associated countries such as the United Kingdom under Horizon Europe.

APACE at a glance

Attribute	Value
Aim	Demonstrate a bio-inspired sunlight-pumped laser operating under diffuse natural sunlight
Core concept	Engineered molecular or doped nanocrystal lasing units attached to bacterial photosynthetic antenna complexes
Claimed advantage	At least two orders of magnitude higher efficiency than prior sunlight-pumped designs
Potential uses	In-orbit hydrogen production, wireless laser power transfer within and between spacecraft, possible Earth links
Duration	October 2024 to September 2028
Budget	EU contribution € 3,398,692.50
Coordinator	Università degli Studi di Firenze, Italy
Consortium countries	Italy, Poland, Germany, United Kingdom
Topic code	HORIZON-EIC-2023-PATHFINDERCHALLENGES-01-05

Practical next steps and transparency

The project points interested readers to its website and CORDIS page, where official information and updates will appear. For a Europe Day audience the message is that ambitious collaboration can surface unconventional routes to persistent problems. For a technical audience the test will be reproducible data on efficiency, lifetime and robustness under relevant conditions.

Disclaimer

This article reflects information shared for knowledge purposes and should not be interpreted as the official view of the European Commission or any other organisation.