Meta announced two partnerships today that signal just how seriously the company is taking its power constraints. As AI workloads balloon and data centers multiply, the company is betting on experimental energy sources that most utilities won't touch: solar power beamed from space and batteries that can discharge for over 100 hours.
Orbital Solar: Overview Energy
The first deal gives Meta early access to up to 1 gigawatt of space-based solar energy from Overview Energy, an Ashburn, Virginia startup founded in 2022. The concept is straightforward if audacious: satellites in geosynchronous orbit capture continuous sunlight and beam it to Earth as near-infrared light. Ground-based solar farms convert that light to electricity the same way they handle direct sunlight, but without the interruption of nightfall or weather.
Overview plans to launch its first orbital demonstration in 2028, with commercial power delivery expected by 2030. The company has already demonstrated power transmission from a moving aircraft to a ground receiver, validating the core technology under real atmospheric conditions. CEO Marc Berte frames the opportunity as infrastructure flexibility, noting that the system can shift power across continents in real time based on demand.
The safety profile matters here. Overview uses a wide, low-intensity near-infrared beam that never exceeds the intensity of sunlight. Near-infrared light is already used in fiber-optic networks and medical imaging. According to Berte, you could stare directly into the satellite's beam without harm.
For Meta, the appeal is obvious. The company can leverage existing solar infrastructure without acquiring new land or waiting years in interconnection queues. Nat Sahlstrom, Meta's VP of Energy and Sustainability, called the technology "a transformative step forward" that can deliver uninterrupted energy from orbit.
Multi-Day Storage: Noon Energy
The second partnership addresses a different problem: what happens when the sun doesn't shine for days at a time. Meta has reserved up to 1 GW and 100 GWh of ultra-long-duration storage from Noon Energy, a Palo Alto company that makes reversible solid oxide fuel cell batteries capable of 100-plus hours of discharge.
Noon's technology stores energy by splitting carbon dioxide into solid carbon and oxygen, then reverses the process to generate electricity. The chemistry relies on abundant elements rather than scarce metals like lithium. The company claims its system uses roughly 1 percent of the critical materials found in conventional lithium-ion batteries. That supply chain advantage could prove significant as competition for battery metals intensifies.
The collaboration begins with a 25 MW pilot project scheduled for completion in 2028, with the full 100 GWh contract kicking in after that. Noon demonstrated its scaled-up system in January, successfully operating for thousands of hours with storage capacity exceeding 200 hours.
Chris Graves, Noon's co-founder and CEO, said data centers represent one of the best applications for the technology. The round-the-clock power demands of AI infrastructure match well with storage systems designed for multi-day discharge cycles.
The Bigger Picture
These deals sit within a broader energy strategy that Meta has been building for years. The company has contracted more than 30 GW of clean and renewable energy and is one of the largest corporate purchasers of nuclear power in American history, with 7.7 GW across agreements with Vistra, TerraPower, Oklo, and Constellation Energy. Partnerships with Sage Geosystems and XGS Energy cover next-generation geothermal.
The common thread is diversification. Meta isn't betting on any single technology to solve its power problem. It's building a portfolio that hedges against the limitations of each source. Solar and wind are cheap but intermittent. Meta's infrastructure buildout requires firm power that can run continuously regardless of weather.
Neither of these technologies is proven at commercial scale. Overview's orbital system remains years away from delivering its first electrons. Noon's 100-hour batteries have only been demonstrated in pilot form. But Meta is locking in capacity now, positioning itself at the front of the line if these approaches work. Given the company's data center expansion plans, including a reported $50 billion project in Louisiana, waiting for certainty may not be an option.
The financial terms of both deals remain undisclosed. What is clear is that the energy demands of AI infrastructure are pushing technology companies into partnerships that would have seemed like science fiction a decade ago.
