It eventually gets degraded to heat and represents an increment to the Earth’s energy budget or, more precisely, the solar component of energy input, since it is just the capture of solar energy which would otherwise miss the Earth. The main natural energy inputs are:
- Solar: 174,000 TW
- Geothermal: 44 TW
- Tidal: 3 TW
- Total: 174,047
Now, any form of energy produced by humans which does not come from the Sun (for example, fossil fuels or nuclear energy) adds to this total, as would additional solar energy captured and delivered by solar power satellites. If total human energy consumption is 18 TW, this represents around 0.01% of the natural energy input from the Sun. This would produce, by itself, a negligible increase in the Earth’s temperature and is around one tenth the variability in solar input over the 11 year solar activity cycle. The main human drivers of changes in the Earth’s temperature are not energy consumption by itself, but side-effects such as release of greenhouse gases from burning of fossil fuels and agricultural and industrial activities.
If produced from sources that do not create these other consequences, human energy production could probably increase by a factor of ten or more without harmfully warming the Earth. Energy production from solar power (directly by Earth-based photovoltaic panels or indirectly by means such as wind turbines or hydroelectric power) do not affect the energy balance, since that is solar energy which would have ended up heating the Earth one way or another anyway.