A contract has been secured to design, build and test technology that will allow satellites to direct energy towards solar arrays, by being sent to space.
Signed by the US department of Defence, the contract (with Overview Energy) is intended to allow solar generation 24 hour a day. With the solar panels orbiting earth, it means they can collect sunlight from the source before beaming it to earth.
This new approach would directly eliminate intermittency and daylight dependency, whilst making industrial-scale solar farms much more efficient. It would also mean that future solar farms could be placed in space rather than in a field, which removes planning permission from solar developers’ to-do lists.
The UK Government is also continuing to investigate whether space-based solar could become a viable source of clean power. A feasibility study published in February 2026 sets out a potential roadmap, with an in-orbit demonstration targeted for 2027 or 2028, followed by a 31MW small-scale system in 2030.
Space based solar is marketed as dispatchable, efficient and ultimately ideal for large corporations which require highly reliable energy sources, such as The Pentagon, which has said it wants to use space-based solar power for remote military bases.
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