Meta Inks Deal For Solar Power At Night, Beamed From Space

The title to unafraid energy for AI models has reached caller heights: Meta has signed an statement pinch nan startup Overview Energy that could spot a 1000 satellites beam infrared ray to star farms that powerfulness information centers astatine night.

In 2024, Meta’s information centers utilized much than 18,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity—roughly capable to powerfulness much than 1.7 cardinal American homes for a year—and its request for compute powerfulness is only increasing. The institution has committed to building 30 gigawatts of renewable powerfulness sources, pinch a attraction connected industrial-scale star powerfulness plants.

Typically, information centers turning to star powerfulness must either put successful artillery retention aliases trust connected different procreation sources to run astatine night.

Overview, a four-year-old, Ashburn, Virginia, outfit that emerged from stealth successful December, has a different solution: The institution is processing spacecraft that cod plentiful star powerfulness successful space. It past plans to person that power to near-infrared ray and beam it astatine sufficiently ample star farms—on nan bid of hundreds of megawatts—which tin person that ray to electricity.

By utilizing a wide, infrared beam to powerfulness existing terrestrial star infrastructure, Overview thinks it tin sidestep nan technological challenges and information and regulatory issues that bedevil plans to transmit powerfulness to Earth done high-power lasers aliases microwave beams. CEO Marc Berte says you’ll beryllium capable to look correct into his satellite’s beam pinch nary sick effects.

The exertion would summation nan return connected finance from building star farms and trim reliance connected fossil fuels — if it tin beryllium deployed astatine scale.

Overview says it has already demonstrated powerfulness transmission to nan crushed from an aircraft, and is readying to motorboat a outer to debased Earth orbit successful January 2028 to execute its first powerfulness transmission from space.

In today’s announcement, Meta said it signed nan first capacity preservation statement pinch Overview to person up to 1 gigawatt of powerfulness from nan company’s spacecraft, though it’s not clear if immoderate money changed hands. Overview developed a caller metric for this contract, megawatt photons, which is nan magnitude of ray required to make a megawatt of electricity.

Berte expects to statesman launching nan satellites that would fulfill that committedness successful 2030, pinch a extremity of flying 1,000 spacecraft successful geosynchronous orbit, a precocious orbit successful which each outer remains fixed supra nan aforesaid constituent connected Earth. He expects each of nan company’s spacecraft to supply powerfulness from abstraction for much than 10 years.

Once successful space, Berte says nan fleet of spacecraft will beryllium capable to screen astir a 3rd of nan planet, pinch an first deployment that will scope from nan West Coast of nan United States crossed to Western Europe. As nan Earth rotates beneath and customer star farms participate evening and night, Overview’s spacecraft should boost their electrical procreation pinch further ray from space.

Berte sees opportunity successful combining some procreation and transmission, pinch nan elasticity to present powerfulness to star farms wherever and whenever it is astir valuable.

“There’s a large quality betwixt being successful immoderate 1 power market, and being successful each of nan power markets,” Berte told TechCrunch.