The sun sets and night falls sooner or later for all of us, but one startup wants to change that. California-based Reflect Orbitals has developed a way to sell sunlight after dark.
Reflect Orbitals builds space mirrors to reflect sunlight onto solar panels at night. The goal is to maximize the energy production of solar farms. According to their official website, you can also reserve a light spot for yourself.
The startup’s CEO, Ben Nowack, believes that “sunlight is the new oil and space is ripe to support energy infrastructure.”
“By precisely reflecting sunlight, infinitely available in space, to specific targets on the ground, we can create a world where sunlight powers solar farms for longer than just a day, and in doing so, turn sunlight into a commodity,” they said in a YouTube video.
“The Russians launched a reflector satellite (Znamya) in the 1990s, and it worked, but we have come a long way since then.”
In 2023, solar power accounted for about 5.6% of U.S. electricity generation, up from 4.8% a year earlier. There are more than 5,000 solar farms in the United States, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
The startup believes it can significantly increase production on these farms using a constellation of simple reflector satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO).
The company’s first satellite is currently under development, but it has already achieved convincing results in real experiments with a hot air balloon equipped with a large mirror.
On its website, Reflect Orbitals states that it is also possible to reserve a light spot. Just fill out a form, to be completed by October 23, 2024, and the after-dark sunlight will be broadcast from the fourth quarter of 2025. It will only be available for four minutes and will cover a diameter of five kilometers.
The startup is certainly different and more innovative than any AI product we’ve seen in recent times. The most recent one to make headlines is the Friend AI Collar, while in the past we’ve seen others like the Rabbit R1 and the Humane AI Pin.
