Overview
- Meta’s capacity reservation, announced Monday, gives it early access to up to 1 gigawatt from Overview Energy’s planned space-solar system, with financial terms undisclosed.
- Overview plans satellites in geosynchronous orbit that collect constant sunlight and beam low‑intensity, near‑infrared light to existing solar farms so they can keep generating power after dark; the company says the beam is less intense than daylight and designed to be safe.
- An aircraft-to-ground power beaming demo occurred in 2025, an in-orbit demonstration is slated for 2028, and the first commercial deliveries are targeted around 2030 with an eventual goal of roughly 1,000 geosynchronous satellites serving regions from the U.S. West Coast to Western Europe.
- Meta also reserved up to 1 GW and 100 GWh of long-duration storage from Noon Energy, which uses reversible solid oxide fuel cells with carbon-based storage, with a 25 MW and 2.5 GWh pilot planned for 2028 to provide 100+ hours of discharge for steady AI loads.
- The push follows soaring electricity needs and tight grid interconnections for data centers, while key hurdles for space solar remain unresolved, including cloud blockage of beams, end-to-end efficiency, pointing accuracy, eye-safety rules, aviation deconfliction, and FCC licensing.