-- Meta Platforms (META) said Monday it has partnered with Overview Energy and Noon Energy to deliver up to 1 gigawatt of space solar energy and long-duration energy storage, to power its artificial intelligence infrastructure and data centers.
Overview Energy's solar satellites will harness energy from space and beam it to solar facilities on Earth, "increasing the capacity of existing solar farms by enabling around-the-clock energy production," the company said.
By utilizing existing solar and grid infrastructure, electricity from the technology is expected to come online faster at scale, compared with power from traditional buildouts.
Meta said commercial delivery could begin as early as 2030, if an orbital demonstration planned for 2028 is successful.
Meanwhile, Noon Energy's battery technology will use carbon-based storage, instead of the conventional lithium-ion batteries, to provide up to 1 GW, or 100 gigawatt-hours of ultra-long-duration energy storage capacity.
The companies expect an initial 25 megawatt, or 2.5 GWh, pilot demonstration project to be completed by 2028.
Meta said it has so far contracted more than 30 GW of clean and renewable energy to support its data center operations. It has partnered with Sage Geosystems and XGS Energy to develop next-generation geothermal energy, and has purchased 7.7 GW of nuclear energy from Vista (VST), TerraPower, Oklo (OKLO), and Constellation Energy (CEG).