Meta inks deal for solar power at night, beamed from space
Meta has entered an innovative agreement with Overview Energy, a Virginia-based startup, to supply its data centers with solar energy at night using power beamed from space. In 2024, Meta’s data centers consumed over 18,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity—a significant demand driven by the company’s growing need to support artificial intelligence workloads. Meta aims to build 30 gigawatts of renewable energy, mostly from large-scale solar farms, to meet its expanding power requirements.
How Space-Based Solar Power Works
Unlike traditional solar farms that require battery storage or backup generators for nighttime operation, Overview Energy is developing satellites capable of collecting abundant solar energy in space. These satellites convert solar power into infrared light and transmit it down to large solar arrays on Earth, which then convert the light back into electricity. This method avoids the risks associated with high-power lasers or microwaves and utilizes existing solar infrastructure.
Technical Milestones and Future Plans
Overview Energy has already shown it can transmit power from an aircraft to the ground and plans to launch its first power-beaming satellite in January 2028. Under its new agreement with Meta, Overview’s satellites, expected to launch in 2030, may provide up to 1 gigawatt of power to Meta’s operations. Each satellite should provide over a decade of service, with an ultimate goal to position 1,000 satellites in geosynchronous orbit, covering regions from the US West Coast to Western Europe.
Potential Impact
If successful, this technology could greatly improve the return on investment in solar farms, reduce reliance on fossil fuels, and offer flexible power delivery to where it’s most needed. The scalable space-based power system could supply energy to multiple markets as the Earth rotates, ensuring continuous renewable energy production for major facilities like data centers around the clock.
For more details, you can read the original article by Tim Fernholz on TechCrunch: Meta inks deal for solar power at night, beamed from space.
