Meta has reserved up to 1 gigawatt of space‑beamed solar power to keep its data centers running after dark. The capacity reservation with Overview Energy would let terrestrial solar farms convert near‑infrared light beamed from orbit into electricity, reducing reliance on batteries or fossil‑fuel backup.

Deal basics: a 1 GW reservation

Meta’s agreement with Overview Energy is a capacity reservation rather than a traditional power-purchase contract: the company secured up to one gigawatt of deliverable power from Overview’s planned fleet. The reservation uses a new unit Overview calls a "megawatt photon"—the amount of light needed to generate one megawatt of electricity on the ground. The companies described this as a first step in reserving capacity.

One gigawatt is a large amount of generation. Meta’s data centers consumed more than 18,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity in 2024—roughly equal to the annual power use of more than 1.7 million American homes—and the company has said it’s building toward 30 gigawatts of renewable capacity to meet growing AI-driven compute demand. Meta is seeking steady, industrial-scale power for data centers that operate around the clock.

How Overview’s system is meant to work

Overview Energy, a startup based in Ashburn, Virginia, is developing spacecraft that gather sunlight in low Earth orbit and convert that energy into near-infrared light to project a wide, lower-intensity beam at existing terrestrial solar farms. Key points Overview has described:

  • The company converts collected sunlight into near-infrared light rather than generating electricity on the satellite and transmitting microwaves or tightly focused lasers to the ground.
  • Beams are broad and, Overview says, low enough in intensity to avoid the safety and spectrum issues associated with high-power microwave or laser transmission; Marc Berte, Overview’s CEO, has said people could look at the beam without ill effects.
  • Ground arrays would need to be very large—on the order of hundreds of megawatts—to make the conversion efficient, and the infrared beam would land on the same panels that already generate daytime power so panels could continue producing after sunset.

Testing and timeline

Overview has demonstrated power transmission to the ground from an aircraft, a step the company says shows the basic conversion and targeting concept can work in the atmosphere. The startup plans to launch a satellite to low Earth orbit in January 2028 to attempt the first power transmission from space to a terrestrial solar installation.

Scaling the concept would likely require dozens to thousands of satellites so a larger constellation could provide more continuous coverage and allow beams to be pointed at different solar farms as orbital geometry changes.

Why Meta is interested

Meta’s compute needs—training and running large AI models—demand steady, high-quality electricity. Solar is among the cheapest sources per megawatt-hour during the day, but at night operators typically rely on batteries, alternative generation such as gas, or curtail workloads. By securing the right to space-beamed infrared light that terrestrial arrays can turn into power, Meta aims to smooth grid demand and reduce reliance on batteries or fossil-fuel backup for its solar-heavy data-center sites.

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Overview plans to launch a satellite to low Earth orbit in January 2028 to attempt the first space-to-ground power transmission.

This article was created with AI assistance.