Meta, which has been consuming enormous amounts of electricity for AI technology, is now planning to harness energy from space itself.
Meta has partnered with a startup called Overview Energy and signed an agreement for an ambitious project that will transmit infrared light from thousands of satellites in space to solar power plants on Earth at night.
With this technology, solar panels will be able to continuously generate electricity even after sunset.
Overview Energy, based in Virginia, operates a technology that collects sunlight scattered in space, converts it into infrared light, and transmits it back to the ground.
According to the company's CEO, this system is safer than previously tested laser or microwave-based energy transmission systems. He assures that the light beams transmitted by the satellites will not cause any harm even if people look at them directly with their eyes.
This is essentially using space technology to overcome the weakness of solar power plants, which do not work at night.
Meta has pre-committed to purchasing up to 1 gigawatt of electrical power from this project (an amount sufficient for hundreds of thousands of American households).
Overview Energy plans to launch its first test satellite in 2028, and by 2030, it aims to cover one-third of the world's map with 1,000 satellites to provide light coverage.
Ref: Techcrunch
