XI’AN — Chinese scientists have taken a major step toward building a space solar power station, a giant power plant in space that could one day send energy back to Earth or to spacecraft.

A research team from Xidian University in Northwest China’s Shaanxi province has made significant progress on the Sun Chasing project, or “Zhuri” in Chinese. The team has developed a ground-based test system for wireless power transmission that can charge multiple moving targets at the same time.

In recent tests, the system achieved a wireless power transmission efficiency of 20.8 percent from direct current to direct current over a distance of 100 meters. It delivered 1,180 watts of power. The team has also built a wireless charging system for drones. In a test, a drone flying at 30 kilometers per hour was able to receive 143 watts of stable power from 30 meters away.