Meta signs deal for space-based solar power

Meta has signed a capacity reservation agreement with Overview Energy, a startup developing space-based solar power technology. Under the agreement, Meta has reserved up to 1 gigawatt of power. The deal could see satellites beam infrared light to terrestrial solar farms to power the technology company’s data centers at night.

The agreement comes as Meta seeks to manage the electricity consumption of its infrastructure. In 2024, Meta’s data centers used more than 18,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity, which is roughly enough to power more than 1.7 million American homes. To support its operations, the company has committed to building 30 gigawatts of renewable power sources.

Overview Energy, a four-year-old startup that emerged from stealth in December, plans to address these needs using space-based solar transmission. The company is planning to launch a satellite to low Earth orbit in January 2028 to perform its first power transmission from space. CEO Marc Berte expects to begin launching satellites in 2030, with a goal of flying 1,000 spacecraft in geosynchronous orbit—a high orbit in which each satellite remains fixed above the same point on Earth. Each spacecraft is expected to provide power from space for more than 10 years.

The startup’s technology avoids the safety and regulatory issues that bedevil plans to transmit power to Earth through high-power lasers or microwave beams. Berte says a person can stare right into his satellite’s beam with no ill effects. To facilitate the contract, the startup developed a new metric called megawatt photons, which represents the amount of light required to generate a megawatt of electricity.

Once in space, the fleet of spacecraft is expected to cover about a third of the planet, with an initial deployment stretching from the West Coast of the United States to Western Europe. As the Earth rotates and customer solar farms enter evening and night, Overview Energy’s spacecraft should boost electrical generation with additional light from space. “There’s a big difference between being in any one energy market, and being in all of the energy markets,” Berte said.

Why it matters

Meta is securing future energy capacity by exploring space-based solar transmission, a move that highlights the energy demands of data centers and the search for alternative renewable sources.