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Startup Reflect Orbital is developing a satellite constellation equipped with large reflective mirrors designed to redirect sunlight to specific locations on Earth after dark. The company envisions customers such as solar farms seeking extended power generation and disaster zones needing emergency illumination, with pricing floated around $5,000 per hour of light delivery.
A Calgary Herald report profiles a 480-acre Alberta property where owner Mark Owerko combined a solar installation with sheep grazing and beekeeping over eight years. A related study in Environmental Research Letters found that grazing two sheep per hectare on solar-farm grasslands boosted beneficial insect populations by 38 percent, including an 83 percent rise in nearby honey bee numbers compared to mowed sites. Owerko's project was approved just before Alberta tightened rules on renewable energy development on agricultural land.
Planted, a startup that uses digital-twin software and robots to redesign and build solar farms, has raised $31.8 million led by Piva Capital and RA Capital Management Planetary Health, with backing from Google, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Gigascale Capital, and Khosla Ventures. The company's technology helped one St. Louis-area project cut land use by 40% while producing the same power output, resolving a zoning dispute that had stalled the development.
Meteoric Technologies, founded by two Cambridge engineers, wants to deploy fleets of autonomous drones into low- and mid-altitude clouds above solar farms to alter water droplets and reduce cloud reflectivity without chemicals. The startup claims this could boost annual power generation from existing solar assets by 10-30%, though this figure comes from a computer model rather than field measurements at an actual solar farm. Its only public evidence so far is a claimed 13% dissipation of an artificial cloud in an undisclosed cloud-chamber test.
Meteoric, a startup founded by two Cambridge engineers, is developing autonomous drone fleets designed to fly into low- and mid-altitude clouds above solar farms and physically alter water droplets to reduce cloud reflectivity. The company says this chemical-free approach could boost energy output from existing solar installations by 10-30%, costing an estimated $30-60 per hour to operate, far cheaper than traditional cloud-seeding aircraft.