Meta inks sell solar energy at night, illuminated from space

The competition for AI-powered electricity has reached a new peak: Meta has signed a contract with startup Overview Energy that can see a thousand satellites beaming infrared light to solar farms that host data at night.

In 2024, Meta’s data centers used more than 18,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity – almost as much energy as energy. 1.7 million American homes per year—and its demand for computing power is only increasing. The company is committed to building 30 gigawatts of renewable electricity, with a focus on the solar power industry.

In many cases, data centers that are turning to solar power must invest in battery storage or rely on other generation to run at night.

In short, the four-year-old, Ashburn, Virginia, wears it he came out of the crowd in December, it has another solution: The company is developing ships that collect large amounts of solar energy in space. It then plans to convert that energy into near-infrared light and beam it into large solar farms—on the order of hundreds of megawatts—that can turn that light into electricity.

By using a large infrared beam to use the earth’s existing equipment, Briefly thinks that it can solve the technical and safety problems with the controls that bedevil wants to transmit energy to the Earth through high-power lasers or microwaves. CEO Marc Berte says you can look at his satellite without any ill effects.

This technology could increase the return on investment in building solar farms and reduce dependence on fossil fuels – if they can be deployed on a large scale.

Briefly says that it has already demonstrated the transmission of energy to the ground from an aircraft, and plans to launch a satellite into low Earth orbit in January 2028 to make its first transmission of energy from space.

In an announcement today, Meta said it signed the first energy storage agreement with Overview to receive 1 gigawatt of power from the company’s aircraft, although it is not known if money changed hands. In short they created a new metric for this contract, megawatt photons, the amount of light needed to produce a megawatt of electricity.

Berte hopes to start launching satellites that will fulfill this commitment in 2030, with the goal of flying 1,000 aircraft in geosynchronous orbit, a high orbit in which each satellite is fixed above the same point on Earth. They expect each of the company’s spacecraft to provide energy from space for more than 10 years.

Once in the air, Berte says the space plane will cover a third of the world, with the first deployment going from the West Coast of the United States through Western Europe. As the Earth rotates lower and customers’ solar farms go into the evening and night, the Overview Pilots must boost their energy with additional light from space.

Berte sees the opportunity to combine both generation and transmission, with the flexibility to provide power to solar farms wherever and whenever it matters most.

“There’s a big difference between being in any energy market, and being in all energy markets,” Berte told TechCrunch.