Space-Based Solar Power

The Pentagon recently urged the United States to take a lead role in developing space-based solar arrays to "beam" power to the surface. The initiative is directed mainly at producing alternate energy to help the US fight climate change, but the technology and implementation can be applied to Mars, and likely will be in the future.
Solar arrays orbiting the planet will be able to collect and store energy to be transmitted to the surface. For Earth, it is expensive to get something into space, but with Mars it is cheaper to get something into orbit around Mars than onto the surface. Orbiting solar arrays, even at Mars's distance from the sun, would be a cheaper way to power anything on the surface of Mars along with solar panels and nuclear reactors already being used. In the case of the southern summer dust storms, this would be a good way to collect and store energy for the long periods when the sun is blocked out. The article can be found here:
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/071012-pentagon-space-solarpower.html