Meta Inks Deal for Solar Power at Night, Beamed from Space

The pursuit of reliable electricity for artificial intelligence models has reached new heights, literally. Meta has entered into an agreement with Overview Energy, a startup aiming to revolutionize the way solar power is harnessed and transmitted. The deal could see a constellation of satellites beam infrared light to solar farms, providing power to data centers during the night.

In 2024, Meta's data centers consumed over 18,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity, roughly the amount needed to power 1.7 million American homes for a year. As the company's demand for computing power continues to surge, it has committed to developing 30 gigawatts of renewable power sources, with a focus on large-scale solar power plants. However, traditional solar power systems require either costly battery storage or alternative generation sources to operate during nighttime hours.

Overview, a four-year-old company based in Ashburn, Virginia, claims to have found a solution. The startup is designing spacecraft that collect solar power in space and convert it into near-infrared light, which is then beamed to solar farms on Earth. These farms can convert the light back into electricity, potentially increasing the efficiency and reducing the reliance on fossil fuels.

According to Overview's CEO, Marc Berte, the technology uses a wide, infrared beam that can be safely directed at solar farms without posing a risk to people or the environment. The company has already demonstrated power transmission from an aircraft and plans to launch a satellite into low Earth orbit in January 2028 to test power transmission from space. Under the agreement with Meta, Overview will provide up to 1 gigawatt of power, using a new metric called megawatt photons to measure the amount of light required to generate electricity.

Berte expects to begin launching the satellites that will fulfill this commitment in 2030, with a goal of deploying 1,000 spacecraft in geosynchronous orbit. Once operational, the fleet of spacecraft will be able to cover about a third of the planet, providing power to solar farms across the West Coast of the United States and Western Europe. As the Earth rotates, the satellites will boost electrical generation at solar farms during evening and nighttime hours.

Berte believes that combining generation and transmission will offer flexibility and value to customers, allowing Overview to deliver power to solar farms wherever and whenever it is most needed. "There's a big difference between being in any one energy market, and being in all of the energy markets," Berte told TechCrunch, highlighting the potential of Overview's innovative approach to solar power transmission.