Overview Energy is emerging from stealth today, announcing a milestone towards eventually beaming solar power to Earth.
The Virginia-based startup, which was founded in 2022, has raised $20M so far. The money is going towards building a fleet of satellites in geosynchronous orbit that are designed to collect solar power in space, and use low-intensity, near-infrared light to deliver that power to Earth’s existing solar energy grid.
Going off-Earth to collect sunlight allows solar power to be a more reliable energy source for terrestrial industries—including at night, Overview officials say.
Beam me down: Overview isn’t operating in space just yet. But it did notch a major leap forward, by transmitting power from an aircraft in motion to a receiver on Earth roughly three miles below, according to a press release.
The demo validated several pieces of the tech, including:
- The ability to send power while in motion;
- Hardware such as lasers and optics, which are about the same as what will someday fly in orbit.
“Our airborne milestone proved that the core transmission system works in motion—the same foundation that will operate in orbit,” Marc Berte, Overview’s founder and CEO, said in a statement. “Space solar energy will only matter when it powers real demand on Earth, and we’re designing for that scale from Day 1.”
The tech is intended to serve “energy-intensive” users on Earth. That includes customers like data centers, grids for large cities, or military bases, according to the release.
What’s next: For Overview, the sky isn’t the limit. The company is planning a demo in LEO in 2028, which will mark the startup’s first operations in space. It will then aim to begin selling commercial energy transmission from geosynchronous orbit in 2030.
