Meta Signs Deal for Space-Based Solar Power, 1,000 Satellites to Beam Energy to Data Centers at Night

April 27, 2026 18:00 CST | Source: TechCrunch

Key Points

The race to secure electricity for AI models has reached new heights. Meta has signed an agreement with space solar startup Overview Energy that could see a thousand satellites beam infrared light to terrestrial solar farms, providing continuous power to data centers through the night.

Energy Demand Context

In 2024, Meta’s data centers consumed more than 18,000 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electricity — roughly enough to power over 1.7 million American homes for a year. With the company’s compute needs only increasing, it has committed to building 30 gigawatts of renewable power sources, with a focus on industrial-scale solar power plants.

Traditionally, data centers relying on solar power must either invest in battery storage systems or depend on other generation sources to operate at night.

Space-Based Solar Solution

Overview Energy, a four-year-old company based in Ashburn, Virginia, emerged from stealth mode in December. Its solution: developing spacecraft that collect abundant solar power in space, then convert that energy to near-infrared light and beam it at sufficiently large solar farms (hundreds of megawatts), which convert that light back to electricity.

By using a wide infrared beam to power existing terrestrial solar infrastructure, Overview believes it can sidestep the technological challenges, safety concerns, and regulatory issues that plague plans to transmit power to Earth via high-power lasers or microwave beams. CEO Marc Berte says you could stare directly into the satellite’s beam with no ill effects.

Agreement Details

In today’s announcement, Meta said it signed the first capacity reservation agreement with Overview to receive up to 1 gigawatt of power from the company’s spacecraft, although it’s unclear whether any money changed hands. Overview developed a new metric for this contract — “megawatt photons” — representing the amount of light required to generate a megawatt of electricity.

Timeline

Berte expects to begin launching the satellites needed to fulfill this commitment in 2030, with a goal of flying 1,000 spacecraft in geosynchronous orbit — a high orbit where each satellite remains fixed above the same point on Earth. He expects each spacecraft to provide power from space for more than 10 years.

Overview plans to launch a satellite to low Earth orbit in January 2028 for its first power transmission from space. The company says it has already demonstrated power transmission to the ground from an aircraft.

Coverage

Once in space, the fleet will be able to cover about a third of the planet, with an initial deployment spanning from the US West Coast to Western Europe. As the Earth rotates and customer solar farms enter evening and nighttime, Overview’s spacecraft will boost their electrical generation with additional light from space.

Berte sees opportunity in combining both generation and transmission, with the flexibility to deliver power to solar farms wherever and whenever it is most valuable.

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

Source: TechCrunch - Meta inks deal for solar power at night, beamed from space