Meta has signed a deal with startup Overview Energy for up to 1 gigawatt of space-based solar power. The only catch: the technology doesn't exist yet.
Meta Platforms has signed a deal with startup Overview Energy for up to 1 gigawatt of solar power collected in space and beamed back to Earth. The company plans to use this energy to feed the massive power demands of its AI data centers. For context, one gigawatt is roughly the output of a single nuclear reactor.
Overview Energy, based in northern Virginia, wants to capture sunlight with satellites in low Earth orbit, convert it into electricity, and beam it down to receivers on the ground. The big advantage over conventional solar farms: in orbit, the sun never sets, and weather, time of day, and seasons don't matter. Nat Sahlstrom, Meta's head of energy and sustainability, says the deal gives Meta access to clean and "uninterrupted energy."
The technology is still entirely hypothetical
There's a significant caveat: Overview Energy's technology doesn't actually exist yet. The startup is still developing and testing its components, with a first orbital demonstration planned for 2028. Commercial power deliveries aren't expected to begin until 2030. Meta declined to share the financial terms of the deal but gets priority access to Overview Energy's future capacity in return.
