TL;DR · 30-second read
The Short Version
A startup called Virtus Solis has signed a 20-year deal to sell electricity collected by satellites in space and beamed down to a receiving station it plans to build in Illinois.
The buyer, Brae Systems, runs underwater computer centers for artificial intelligence. The starting amount of power, delivered for a full year, would cover the electricity use of tens of thousands of American homes.
The catch: the beaming technology has not yet been publicly shown working. Its first public demonstration is scheduled for March 2027. That test, not the signature, will show whether the deal can happen.
Virtus Solis Technologies and Brae Systems announced on September 30, 2026, from Troy, Michigan, and Chicago, that they have closed a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) under which Virtus Solis will supply 100 megawatts (MW) of round-the-clock, space-based solar power, or 876,000 megawatt-hours (MWh) a year, through a dedicated receiving station to be built in Illinois. Brae holds an option to expand to 250 MW (2.19 million MWh a year) within three years of initial commercial operations. The companies describe the deal as the world’s first commercial space-based solar PPA and a multi-billion-dollar lifetime gross contract commitment.
The electricity is intended for Brae’s subsea GPU data centers. Virtus Solis says it will hold its first public technical demonstration in March 2027, is supported by a $2 million corporate development agreement with ARPA-E, and expects this to be the first of a series of commercial offtake agreements over the next several months.
Executive Summary
The agreement pairs two unconventional approaches to AI infrastructure: satellites that collect sunlight in orbit and beam it to Earth as radio-frequency energy, and data centers placed underwater so surrounding water does the cooling. Brae gets a 20-year commitment of firm, carbon-free power, while Virtus Solis gets a named, long-term buyer, the kind of contracted revenue energy developers use to raise capital.
The significance lies in the sequencing. The contract is signed before the technology’s first public demonstration, and the release itself names March 2027 as the next major proof point for Virtus Solis’s unit economics. No commercial operations date, price, launch schedule or financing plan is disclosed. The PPA therefore sets up a dated test of whether orbital baseload power can move from a signed offtake to a financed, operating asset.
For AI infrastructure planners, the deal is worth watching less as a near-term power source than as a signal: developers facing grid constraints are willing to contract for power from technologies that do not yet operate commercially.
A Contract Signed Ahead of the Hardware
A power purchase agreement is a long-term contract in which a buyer commits to purchase electricity from a specific generator on agreed terms. In conventional energy, the PPA usually comes first: a developer secures a creditworthy buyer, then uses that contracted revenue to raise the debt and equity needed to build. The Virtus Solis–Brae agreement follows the same sequence, but at an earlier stage than is typical, because the generating asset is an orbital solar system that has yet to hold its first public technical demonstration.
The release gives some anchors: a 20-year term, a receiving station in Illinois, and a March 2027 demonstration. It does not give a commercial operations date, a satellite launch schedule or a price per megawatt-hour. Even the expansion option is keyed to “initial commercial operations,” a milestone whose date is not stated.
Virtus Solis says more offtake agreements will follow over the coming months. For an early-stage generator, stacking contracted demand is a rational strategy, since each signed buyer strengthens the case to investors. The value of that stack, however, rests on the performance of the technology underneath it.
Why Beam Efficiency, Not the Signature, Sets Bankability
Space-based solar power collects sunlight on satellites, converts it into radio-frequency energy, beams it to a ground receiving station, and converts it back into electricity. Losses at each conversion step determine how much collected energy actually reaches the customer, and therefore how many satellites, launches and dollars are needed per megawatt delivered. That end-to-end figure is known as wireless power transfer (WPT) efficiency, and it is the central variable in the economics of the whole asset class.
The release itself identifies this as the hinge. It calls the March 2027 demonstration “the next major proof point” for Virtus Solis’s unit economics (its cost per unit of power delivered) and says the company expects to show record WPT efficiencies. The $2 million ARPA-E agreement (ARPA-E is the US Department of Energy’s high-risk energy research agency) supports development of “a new class of power electronics” that orbital generation requires. In the company’s own framing, the cost basis is still being established.
Infrastructure lenders typically underwrite two separate questions: can the buyer pay, and can the asset produce? A 20-year PPA speaks to the first. The second remains open until the efficiency figures are demonstrated publicly, which is why the contract’s practical meaning for financing arrives with the 2027 demonstration rather than with this week’s announcement. The outcome affects Virtus Solis’s ability to raise construction capital, Brae’s long-range power planning, and every subsequent buyer weighing a similar offtake.
What the Numbers Do and Don’t Establish
The annual energy figures are exact multiples of capacity: 100 MW running every one of the 8,760 hours in a year equals 876,000 MWh, and 250 MW equals 2.19 million MWh. The stated volumes therefore assume full output around the clock. The release separately cites a “guaranteed 99.9% uptime,” which would allow roughly 8.8 hours of downtime a year, so the headline volumes are best read as a nameplate ceiling rather than a delivery forecast.
The “multi-billion-dollar” lifetime value can be bounded, though not pinned down, because no price is disclosed. The base 100 MW over 20 years totals about 17.5 million MWh; reaching even $2 billion on that volume alone would require an average price of roughly $114 per MWh. At the full 250 MW for 20 years, about 43.8 million MWh, $2 billion corresponds to roughly $46 per MWh. Either the contracted price is relatively high, or the multi-billion characterization assumes Brae exercises its expansion option, which is Brae’s choice to make.
None of this contradicts the companies’ statements. It clarifies that the most prominent figures, 250 MW and multi-billion dollars, describe the contract’s upper bound rather than its committed base.
The Case for Brae, and the Delivery Path
Brae’s rationale tracks genuine pressures on AI infrastructure. Clusters of GPUs, the chips that train and run AI models, draw large, constant electrical loads and shed significant heat, and in many regions new data centers wait years for grid connections. Brae’s model addresses cooling by submerging compute modules, and the PPA addresses supply with power that does not depend on the local grid’s generation mix. CEO Vishnu Indukuri said the agreement gives Brae “predictable power costs and zero carbon emissions, completely insulated from terrestrial grid curtailment.”
The geography raises a question the companies have not yet answered. Power is to arrive at a receiving station in Illinois, while Brae’s compute is subsea, and the release does not say where Brae’s modules will sit or how electricity will travel from the station to them. If delivery runs over existing transmission lines, the degree of insulation from curtailment (grid operators ordering generators or loads to reduce output) will depend on how that transmission is contracted.
If the technology performs, the beneficiaries are AI operators seeking firm, clean power without waiting in grid interconnection queues. If timelines slip, Brae will need other supply in the interim, and the release does not describe a backup arrangement.
Background
Space-based solar power has been studied since the late 1960s. Its appeal is that sunlight in orbit is not interrupted by clouds or night in the way ground-based panels are; its obstacles have been the cost of launching hardware and the efficiency of beaming energy to Earth. Virtus Solis Technologies, based in Troy, Michigan, is pursuing the concept with mass-manufactured modular satellite arrays and radio-frequency wireless power transmission to terrestrial receivers.
Underwater data centers have also been tested before, most visibly in Microsoft’s Project Natick, which operated a sealed server module on the seabed off Scotland’s Orkney Islands. Brae Systems is commercializing the approach for dense GPU clusters, arguing that water cooling and freedom from land constraints suit the heat and power demands of AI workloads. Source: Virtus Solis Signs Landmark 20-Year Space Solar PPA with Brae Systems to Deliver 250 MW of Orbital Baseload Clean Power, the companies’ joint announcement of the 20-year orbital solar supply agreement for Brae’s subsea GPU data centers.Sources