Volta Sets World Record in Power-Over-Fiber: Electrical Power Delivered over 1 Kilometer
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Demonstration validates architecture for emergency and tactical optical energy grids
MONTRÉAL, QC — May 1, 2026 — Volta Space Technologies Inc. today announced a world-record demonstration in Power-Over-Fiber (PoF) energy transmission, delivering 72 watts of usable electrical power over a 1-kilometer optical fiber link from a 300-watt optical source. The achievement, completed in Volta’s Montréal laboratory, represents the highest electrical power × distance product reported in the open PoF literature to date — exceeding previously published benchmarks by nearly an order of magnitude.
The demonstration combines a 300 W optical feed with Volta’s high-efficiency photonic power converter chain, delivering the energy to an isolated, fully galvanically decoupled load through a single optical fiber. No copper. No electromagnetic signature. No ground loop.
“This is a milestone we’ve been building toward for two years. It validates the architecture we’re scaling toward field deployment — and it’s a launching point, not a destination.”
— Guillaume Blanchette, Director of Laser & Technology Development, Volta Space Technologies
Toward a deployable platform
Volta is now developing a next-generation PoF platform engineered to deliver tens of watts of electrical power at distances exceeding 8 kilometers from a single fiber. At that scale, the technology unlocks deployment scenarios that have no equivalent in conventional power distribution:
• Emergency power grids that can be deployed in hours over fiber spools, restoring critical loads after natural disasters or grid failures without waiting for utility crews.
• Tactical energy grids for forward-deployed defence and security operations, providing covert, EMI-immune, jam-resistant power to sensors, communications nodes, and unmanned systems with no electrical signature for adversaries to detect.
• Remote infrastructure powering for sites where copper trenching is uneconomic, environmentally restricted, or operationally unsafe.
The platform builds on Volta’s broader Power-Over-Fiber and laser power beaming portfolio, developed under programs including NATO DIANA, the Canadian Space Agency, the European Space Agency, and the U.S. Operational Energy Investment Committee Fund (OECIF) Lepton program (multi-million USD).
“Energy delivered as light, through a hair-thin glass strand, with no electrical signature — this changes what’s possible for both humanitarian response and defence logistics. We’re moving from laboratory record to deployable platform.”
— Guillaume Blanchette
Next steps
Volta will present detailed technical results at upcoming industry conferences and is engaging with defence, civil protection, and infrastructure partners on field demonstration opportunities, including a planned Finnish defence ecosystem demonstration in November 2026.
About Volta Space Technologies
Volta Space Technologies Inc. develops Power-Over-Fiber and laser power beaming systems for defence, unmanned systems, and cislunar space applications. Headquartered in Montréal with operations in Canada and the United States, Volta is advancing the architecture for delivering energy as light — across kilometers on Earth and across the cislunar domain.