Meta signs deal to buy satellite beamed solar power at night

In short: Meta signed an agreement with Overview Energy to reserve up to 1 gigawatt of electricity made by satellites and sent to solar farms at night.

What happened

Meta said it signed a “capacity reservation” agreement with Overview Energy, a startup based in Ashburn, Virginia. The deal would let Meta receive up to 1 gigawatt of power in the future, although TechCrunch notes it is not clear whether any money changed hands.

Meta’s interest is tied to rising electricity use for its data centers, which are large buildings full of computers that run online services and AI systems. TechCrunch reported that Meta’s data centers used more than 18,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity in 2024, which it compared to the annual power use of more than 1.7 million US homes.

Overview’s plan is unusual. It wants to collect solar energy in space, turn it into near-infrared light (a kind of light you cannot see, similar to the glow a remote control uses), and shine it down to large solar farms on Earth. Those solar farms would then convert that light into electricity, helping them produce power after the sun goes down.

Overview says it has already shown it can send power to the ground from an aircraft. It plans to launch a satellite to low Earth orbit in January 2028 for its first test from space, and it expects launches for Meta’s reserved capacity could begin around 2030. The company’s longer-term goal is about 1,000 satellites in geosynchronous orbit, meaning they stay over the same spot on Earth.

Why it matters

AI and data centers need a steady supply of electricity, including at night. If Overview’s approach works at large scale, it could make solar farms more useful around the clock and reduce the need for batteries or fossil fuel power overnight.

Source: TechCrunch AI