In a laboratory amid Northern Virgina’s sprawling data centers, a group of scientists is looking very far outside the box for a solution to overwhelmed power grids.

They want to harness the sun’s rays and shoot a kilometer-wide laser — they prefer the term “power beam” — down from satellites in space to solar panels on Earth. The idea is to overcome solar power’s biggest weakness: that it stops working when there is no sunlight.

If all goes according to plan — a big if, as this is a vision innovators and investors have been chasing for decades — those beams could turn the energy industry on its head. They would enable off-the-shelf solar panels to generate electricity even at night and could more than triple the amount of energy produced by a conventional solar farm.

Read more in the Washington Post here.

The views and opinions expressed are those of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of C3.