Overview Energy in Data

Overview's approach to space solar energy is the lowest cost and most scalable solution to the world's most urgent need: more reliable, affordable, and flexible energy.

As a company, our North Star is techno-economics. This post lays out the most important data points that underpin our business – our space solar energy is feasible, disruptive, and urgent today. We can’t afford not to develop this technology!

We’ve designed the best approach to space solar energy

Overview satellites are incredibly simple by design, composed of only four modular subsystems. We use:

• PV panels: Taking advantage of the low cost and mass scale of the solar industry
• Laser modules: Laser diode modules, which have gotten dramatically cheaper as semiconductor production has scaled and been automated (think LED lights)
• Thermal: Low-cost radiators and heat pipes (similar to the ones in your laptop), shaded behind our satellite’s solar arrays – therefore always in the dark side of the satellite and efficiently rejecting heat
• Optics: Beam-directing optical elements are mass-manufactured using established processes like diamond turning (the same techniques used to produce shatter-resistant motorcycle mirrors) and paired with proprietary low-cost coatings

Not only is our space solar energy cost competitive with average U.S. electricity…

Although space solar energy is sensitive to launch costs that are outside of our direct control, the energy would be competitive in many markets with a launch cost of $1,000/kg.  The average wholesale electricity price on U.S. grids is roughly $50/MWh. We will compete with and ultimately beat other energy generation options as launch costs decline and our production scales.*

Our space solar energy unlocks extremely low levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) by minimizing unit capex, increasing lifetime, and maximizing utilization of the satellites. Uniquely, we use existing solar projects as our receivers, which are already profitable with sunlight alone – limiting the marginal cost of the receiver on the ground.

…it can serve multiple peak prices in the same day

Wholesale power prices vary dramatically over the course of a single day for a given node on the grid, based on available generation and required load. This is why batteries in ERCOT often earn most of their year’s revenue in just a few days with peak pricing – for example, 50% of revenue in just 13 days in 2023.

What if those batteries could instantly move across a continent? They would serve multiple peak pricing events every day, rather than being at the mercy of their local node’s pricing. Batteries can’t move, but our space solar energy can.

Each one of Overview’s satellites can see a third of the planet at any given time, and direct the energy where it’s needed most – not only can we serve peak demand (and pricing) every day, we can do it multiple times per day.

GEO near-IR is the space solar energy approach that makes the most sense

Our approach –

• Is based on mature laser technology and doesn’t require any technical breakthroughs (e.g., in-orbit assembly and high precision phased array antennas)
• Has high utilization and low LCOE. A single satellite in our orbit can maintain continuous line-of-sight to a ground receiver, avoiding the absentee ratio issue of LEO proposals (which requires hundreds of satellites for continuous coverage).  This also means we don’t need batteries, which dramatically decreases our cost
• Requires the least capital investment for an energy system that can meaningfully deliver utility-scale energy because each satellite is 100% utilized from day 1, instead of needing a complete constellation to deliver reliable power
• Is invisible and passively safe, as it's near-IR with the energy spread across a wide area, making it not harmful or disruptive to humans, animals, or aircraft

Overview disrupts battery economics

We get a lot of questions about how space solar energy competes with storage, the most natural alternative. Overview beats solar + storage, even accounting for the projected declines in battery cell costs. Satellites fix one of the biggest issues with long duration storage that most analyses miss: utilization.

Unlike batteries, Overview’s economics are not impacted by a single site’s  utilization

The typical utility-scale battery installed has a duration of 2-4 hours (3 hours on average in 2024). Longer durations are increasingly being demanded as the grid needs to sustain generation in peak load windows (e.g., in the evening after we all go home) when solar energy is not available.

Batteries get dramatically more expensive the longer their duration of storage, because incremental hours are increasingly less likely to be used (e.g., the 12th hour is only needed in the winter when the day is much shorter).

Overview solves this problem since our customers only pay for the energy when they need it, and the satellite serves others the rest of the time. Sharing a single satellite across different customers in a given year provides them with unique economics independent of utilization while keeping the satellite utilization high, and therefore our cost low.

We even dramatically improve the economics of the storage that does get built. While batteries are traditionally only charged during the day, we can charge them at night during days when PV alone isn’t enough to sustain the load, further reducing required overbuild.

By only paying for space solar energy when they need it, customers save billions of dollars in ground CapEx

Powering these 4 GW of data centers with satellites in addition to solar + storage would save $14B in CapEx by reducing PV/battery overbuild while increasing the system capacity factor from 71% to 83%.

Overview’s satellites can deliver energy when the sun isn’t shining – at night and on the winter day –  keeping energy systems reliable without making them expensive. The performance unlocked by space solar energy dramatically changes the economics of solar, enabling its use in baseload applications like data centers where the speed to market solar offers is unparalleled.

Now is the time for space solar energy

Energy demand, launch costs, and solar deployments are all rapidly converging – making now the perfect time for our space solar energy technology.

First, power demand will double over the next two decades

Second, launch costs have been getting dramatically cheaper, enabling attractive economics

Third, Overview’s receivers already exist at scale in the form of utility-scale solar projects…

Overview typically requires 200+ MW solar projects for economic operations. We went from five 200+ MW projects in 2015 globally (excluding China) to 262 in 2025 totaling 79 GW of capacity. By the end of the decade, we will be at 1,300+ projects nearing 1 TW – a $500B+ annual market.***

This does not take into account all the additional projects that will be built in the 2030s as a function of unique economics unlocked by Overview – for example at high latitudes where solar projects aren’t traditionally profitable due to the effect of seasonality, which we are immune to as there are no seasons in space.
 

…which are rapidly being built as solar outgrows every other form of power generation

Overview uniquely offers the benefits of in-space power and on-Earth energy

We benefit from abundant 24/7 sunlight in space and the ability to direct energy to where it’s needed the most. We also power the grid at large – including data centers, factories, mines, and cities – like a fusion reactor or geothermal plant. Combining the power of space with the broad urgent need on Earth both makes Overview the killer space application (i.e., Starlink for energy) and revolutionizes energy markets globally.

Read more about powering data centers from space in our AI’s electron problem.

Best part, the technology is real!

Read more about our world first demonstration on our airborne blog post.

And we’re building it in the U.S., to leverage and extend American launch leadership

We will manufacture these satellites in the U.S., partnering with leading American suppliers, and both relying on and enhancing the American launch industry. We invented this in Northern Virginia, we’re building it in Northern Virginia, and it will be one of the most radically transformative energy innovations the world has seen in decades.

Notes and references

• *Assuming GWs of scale; average U.S. wholesale electricity prices https://www.eia.gov/electricity/wholesale/
• **Assuming $650/kW PV cost, $235/kWh 2 hour battery cost, and $215/kWh 4 hour battery cost (based on NREL ATB 2035 Aggressive scenario and Lazard LCOE). Assuming enough satellites are available to double nameplate capacity of solar project
• ***Assuming 50pp capacity factor improvement at double the nameplate capacity at $60/MWh