Overview Energy wants to beam energy from space to existing solar farms

Overview Energy emerged from stealth today with a plan to use the world’s solar panels as nighttime collectors of power beamed down from space. The startup plans to use large solar arrays in geosynchronous orbit — about 22,000 miles above the Earth where satellites match the planet’s rotation — to harvest sunlight. It will then use infrared lasers to transmit that power to utility-scale solar farms on Earth, allowing them to send power to the grid nearly round the clock. Overview has raised $20 million to date, and part of that money has gone toward an airborne demonstration of its power beaming technology. A light aircraft transmitted power using a laser to a ground receiver over a distance of 5 kilometers (3 miles). Investors include the Aurelia Institute, Earthrise Ventures, Engine Ventures, EQT Foundation, Lowercarbon Capital, and Prime Movers Lab. As space launch costs have declined over the past decade or so, space-based power has gone from pure science fiction to something closer to reality. There are still several hurdles to overcome: For one, it’s still significantly cheaper to deploy solar panels here on Earth than to send them into space. And the ability to send power wirelessly from orbit down to our planet’s surface is still in its infancy. Other companies are attempting the same feat. Aetherflux is also pursuing a laser-based approach. Others like Emrod and Orbital Composites/Virtus Solis are developing microwave-based power transmission, which sends energy wirelessly using a different portion of the electromagnetic spectrum than Aetherflux and Overview. Techcrunch event Join the Disrupt 2026 Waitlist Add yourself to the Disrupt 2026 waitlist to be first in line when Early Bird tickets drop. Past Disrupts have brought Google Cloud, Netflix, Microsoft, Box, Phia, a16z, ElevenLabs, Wayve, Hugging Face, Elad Gil, and Vinod Khosla to the stages — part of 250+ industry leaders driving 200+ sessions built to fuel your growth and sharpen your edge. Plus, meet the hundreds of startups innovating across every sector. Join the Disrupt 2026 Waitlist Add yourself to the Disrupt 2026 waitlist to be first in line when Early Bird tickets drop. Past Disrupts have brought Google Cloud, Netflix, Microsoft, Box, Phia, a16z, ElevenLabs, Wayve, Hugging Face, Elad Gil, and Vinod Khosla to the stages — part of 250+ industry leaders driving 200+ sessions built to fuel your growth and sharpen your edge. Plus, meet the hundreds of startups innovating across every sector. San Francisco | October 13-15, 2026 WAITLIST NOW Microwaves are less sensitive to clouds and humidity than infrared lasers, which can’t transmit in cloudy weather since the suspended water droplets would absorb much of the energy. But because microwave-based systems can’t reuse existing solar farms, they would have to build their own ground stations. To keep costs down, those ground receivers would probably be smaller, so the energy beams would have to be tighter and more powerful. Companies are developing ways to swiftly interrupt the beam to prevent collateral damage to birds and aircraft, but it’s still a concern. Overview’s reuse of solar farms would mitigate some of those concerns, though it would still have to convince the public that energy beams from space are safe and won’t stray off target. (Remember SimCity 2000?) The company will also have to ensure its laser system is very efficient, otherwise the benefit of collecting sunlight in space will evaporate as the energy is converted to infrared light and back again. The startup says that in 2028 it intends to launch a satellite into low Earth orbit — far below the 36,000 kilometers (22,000 miles) at which it ultimately intends to operate. If all goes as planned, it’ll start sending megawatts’ worth of power from geosynchronous orbit in 2030. If it sounds audacious, it is. Overview isn’t just confronting some promising but potentially unforgiving physics problems but will also be battling grid-scale batteries, which are getting cheaper every year, and potentially nuclear fusion. But enough people believe it will happen that specialty suppliers have started popping up. A sci-fi future, indeed. Topics Climate, earthrise, Engine Ventures, Lowercarbon, Lowercarbon Capital, Overview Energy, Prime Movers Lab, Solar Power, Space, space-based solar power, Startups Tim De Chant Senior Reporter, Climate Tim De Chant is a senior climate reporter at TechCrunch. He has written for a wide range of publications, including Wired magazine, the Chicago Tribune, Ars Technica, The Wire China, and NOVA Next, where he was founding editor. De Chant is also a lecturer in MIT’s Graduate Program in Science Writing, and he was awarded a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT in 2018, during which time he studied climate technologies and explored new business models for journalism. He received his PhD in environmental science, policy, and management from the University of California, Berkeley, and his BA degree in environmental studies, English, and biology from St. Olaf College. You can contact or verify outreach from Tim by emailing tim.dechant@techcrunch.com.

View Bio Dates TBD Locations TBA Plan ahead for the 2026 StrictlyVC events. Hear straight-from-the-source candid insights in on-stage fireside sessions and meet the builders and backers shaping the industry. Join the waitlist to get first access to the lowest-priced tickets and important updates.

Waitlist Now Most Popular SpaceX reportedly planning 2026 IPO with $1.5T valuation target Sean O'Kane Claude Code is coming to Slack, and that’s a bigger deal than it sounds Rebecca Bellan Creator IShowSpeed sued for allegedly punching, choking viral humanoid Rizzbot Dominic-Madori Davis Sources: AI synthetic research startup Aaru raised a Series A at a $1B ‘headline’ valuation Marina Temkin SpaceX reportedly in talks for secondary sale at $800B valuation, which would make it America’s most valuable private company Connie Loizos Meta acquires AI device startup Limitless Sarah Perez After Neuralink, Max Hodak is building something even wilder Connie Loizos