A thousand satellites in geosynchronous orbit could soon beam infrared light to solar farms on Earth at night, under an agreement between Meta and startup Overview Energy. The goal is to supply power for the company's artificial intelligence data centers.
Meta's data centers used more than 18,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity in 2024, a figure the company says is enough to power over 1.7 million American homes for a year. The company has committed to building 30 gigawatts of new renewable power sources, primarily industrial-scale solar plants. The new agreement with Overview Energy reserves up to 1 gigawatt of capacity from the startup's planned satellite fleet.
We’re announcing two new partnerships to bring innovative energy generation and storage to our data centers:
— Engineering at Meta (@Meta_Engineers) April 27, 2026
1/ 🛰️ Space Solar: Partnering with Overview Energy to beam up to 1 GW of space solar power from orbit to Earth for around the clock power production. pic.twitter.com/l5lPCz75C7
Overview Energy's proposed system uses spacecraft to collect solar power in space, convert it to near-infrared light, and transmit it to large terrestrial solar farms. The company claims its wide, infrared beam can safely power existing solar infrastructure without the regulatory and safety challenges of high-power lasers or microwaves.
Marc Berte, CEO of Overview Energy:
"There's a big difference between being in any one energy market, and being in all of the energy markets."
The startup says it has demonstrated power transmission from an aircraft to the ground. Its first satellite, designed to perform an initial power transmission test from low Earth orbit, is scheduled for launch in January 2028.
Berte expects the full fleet of satellites needed to fulfill Meta's 1 Gigawatt reservation to begin launching in 2030. The goal is to operate 1,000 spacecraft in geosynchronous orbit, where each satellite remains fixed above a point on Earth. According to Berte, each spacecraft is designed to provide power for more than 10 years.
Once deployed, the fleet would cover about a third of the planet, initially targeting a corridor from the U.S. West Coast to Western Europe. As the Earth rotates and solar farms enter nighttime, the satellites would beam additional light to boost electricity generation.
The agreement uses a new metric developed by Overview: Megawatt photons, defined as the amount of light required to generate one megawatt of electricity. It is not clear from the announcement whether any money has been exchanged as part of the capacity reservation.
The technology aims to increase the return on investment for solar farms and reduce reliance on fossil fuel backup generation. Its viability depends on deployment at a scale never before attempted for space-based solar power. Source: Techcrunch