Meta inks deal for solar power at night, beamed from space

Meta Backs Space-Based Solar to Power AI at Night

In a bid to solve the escalating energy demands of AI, Meta has signed a capacity reservation agreement with startup Overview Energy for a novel solution: beaming solar power from space to its data centers at night. The move underscores the intense pressure hyperscalers face in securing continuous, clean power for their compute-hungry operations. Meta's data centers consumed over 18,000 gigawatt-hours in 2024, and this deal for up to 1 gigawatt of power represents a forward-looking strategy to supplement its significant investments in terrestrial renewable energy sources.

A Novel Approach to Nighttime Solar

Rather than relying on battery storage, Overview Energy proposes a fleet of one thousand satellites in geosynchronous orbit to collect sunlight and transmit it to Earth. The company aims to bypass the regulatory and safety hurdles of other space-power concepts by using a wide, low-intensity near-infrared beam aimed at existing, large-scale solar farms. CEO Marc Berte claims the beam will be safe enough to stare into directly. This approach is designed to increase the utilization and return on investment for existing solar infrastructure.

• Technology: Spacecraft collect solar power and beam it as near-infrared light.
• Target Infrastructure: Existing terrestrial solar farms of several hundred megawatts.
• Company: Overview Energy, a four-year-old startup based in Ashburn, Virginia.
• Timeline: First in-space power transmission test is planned for January 2028, with the Meta commitment slated to begin launching in 2030.
• Metric: The contract uses a new unit, 'megawatt photons,' representing the amount of light needed to generate one megawatt of electricity on the ground.

Implications for AI Infrastructure and Energy Markets

This agreement signals a critical new phase in the buildout of AI infrastructure, where energy sourcing is becoming as important as chip procurement. If successful, Overview's model could create a flexible global energy grid, allowing power to be directed to different solar farms as the Earth rotates, serving whichever market has the highest demand. For the broader AI ecosystem, it validates the pursuit of unconventional, capital-intensive energy solutions to overcome the physical limitations threatening to slow the pace of model development and deployment.

Meta's agreement with Overview is less a firm power purchase and more a strategic hedge against the looming energy crisis for AI. It signals that hyperscalers are now willing to fund speculative 'moonshot' infrastructure projects to secure future compute capacity, effectively becoming venture investors in the future of the power grid.