[Digital Today reporter Jinju Hong] Meta is investing in space solar power transmission technology to secure night-time electricity for its data centres. With power demand surging as artificial intelligence infrastructure expands, it is experimenting with new ways to supply electricity beyond existing renewable energy procurement.

TechCrunch reported on April 27 that Meta signed a power capacity reservation agreement of up to 1 gigawatt with startup Overview Energy, which sends solar energy collected in space to the ground. It is the company’s first large demand contract.

The partnership comes as data-centre power demand rises. Meta data centres used more than 18,000 gigawatt hours of electricity in 2024, equivalent to the annual power use of about 1.7 million U.S. households. Meta has been expanding a solar-focused power portfolio, aiming to secure 30 gigawatts of renewable power sources.

The issue is the structural limitation of solar power generation. Electricity can be produced during the day, but at night it must rely on battery storage or other power sources. Overview Energy has laid out a plan to fill that gap with space-based transmission.

The company is developing a method that collects solar energy on satellites, converts it into near-infrared form and sends it to ground solar power plants, which convert it back into electricity. Its strategy is to use a wide infrared beam instead of high-power lasers or microwaves to lower safety and regulatory burdens. The company said the beam is at a level that does not harm the human body.

It also points to the ability to use existing ground-based solar infrastructure as a strength. Rather than building separate large-scale receiving facilities, it says efficiency can be improved by adding a light source to existing power plants.

The business timeline remains closer to a long-term plan. Overview Energy has completed a ground transmission demonstration using aircraft and plans its first space transmission test via a low-Earth-orbit satellite in January 2028. It is aiming for full-scale satellite deployment to fulfil the contract with Meta after 2030.

The company ultimately plans to deploy about 1,000 satellites in geostationary orbit and build a system in which each satellite supplies power for more than 10 years. It expects this could support solar power plants across a wide area from the western United States to western Europe.

The contract shows that power procurement strategies in the AI era are expanding beyond securing renewable energy to innovation in transmission methods themselves. It is also assessed that commercialisation will depend on space demonstrations and the pace of satellite deployment, as technical and economic verification is needed.