The growing demand for electricity from artificial intelligence and data centers is renewing interest in space-based solar power, a concept NASA studied as far back as the 1970s but that has long been considered too expensive and impractical, The Washington Post reports.
In Ashburn, Virginia, scientists at four-year-old startup Overview Energy are developing a system that would use thousands of satellites orbiting thousands of miles above Earth to capture uninterrupted sunlight and beam energy to solar panels on the ground using near-infrared light.
The technology is designed to overcome solar power’s biggest limitation, its dependence on daylight, by allowing existing solar farms to generate electricity at night and potentially produce more than three times the energy of conventional solar farms without requiring additional land. Overview is targeting January 2028 to beam its first batch of power from space and has signed a contract with Meta to provide the first gigawatt of capacity it generates for the company’s data centers.
The technology is gaining attention as tech companies struggle to secure enough electricity for expanding data centers while facing community resistance to new power infrastructure on Earth. Solar manufacturers, universities and the U.S. Department of Energy are also investing in space-solar research, while China’s advances have added a strategic dimension to the U.S. effort.
Still, major challenges remain, including the cost and complexity of building and launching satellites, uncertainty over whether launch costs will fall enough to make the technology economical, and potential safety concerns involving communications and aircraft navigation. Critics say cheaper advances in batteries and conventional solar could solve the reliability problem first, while supporters believe improvements in space and launch technology could eventually make space-based solar a competitive source of round-the-clock electricity.
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