As Meta continues to expand its artificial intelligence infrastructure, including various new data center projects, the company has said it’s also committed to finding environmentally responsible options to power its AI projects.
That’s where its latest solar power project comes in. This week, Meta announced a partnership with Overview Energy for the development of a plan to collect solar energy in orbit, reducing downtime for solar power collection.
As explained by Meta: “Solar facilities only generate electricity when the sun is shining, leaving them idle for significant parts of the day. Overview Energy aims to unlock those idle hours. Its satellites sit in geosynchronous orbit roughly 22,000 miles above Earth’s equator, where sunlight is constant, collecting energy in space and beaming it to Earth-based solar facilities on the ground as low-intensity, near-infrared light.”
The new approach will facilitate constant solar power connection, maximizing power output, and boosting the capacity of solar energy approaches.
“Because the technology will build on solar infrastructure that’s already in place rather than requiring new facilities, it can come online faster at scale than traditional buildouts,” Meta said.
The concept is similar to the orbital data centers being proposed by SpaceX, which, instead of bringing that solar power to Earth, would put the data centers themselves in space, in order to maximize the sun’s output.
Meta’s proposal seems more viable, utilizing the current infrastructure, which, as Meta said, could see it come online faster, helping to power its AI projects without sucking power supply from the consumer grid.
Meta is also partnering with Noon Energy on new solar battery storage options to further expand the capacity of solar systems.
“Noon Energy’s technology uses modular, reversible solid oxide fuel cells and carbon-based storage to provide over 100 hours of energy storage, far beyond what today’s lithium-ion batteries can deliver,” Meta said.
Meta added that its partnership with Noon could result in a significant expansion of its power storage capacity, building on its orbital solar project.
These are the latest steps in Meta’s expanding effort to provide independent power sources for its AI projects, and ensure that Americans are not adversely impacted by its large-scale plans.
That aligns with the White House’s AI action plan, which includes provisions for ensuring that AI development expands America’s power grid to match the pace of AI innovation.
How that works in practice is another question, but at this stage, Meta is seemingly trying to take a responsible approach to AI development, which should limit the impact on everyday consumers.
