Near-real-time data on avian-solar interactions will help the energy industry understand risks and opportunities for wildlife at solar energy plants. How does an array of solar panels change a habitat? The question is complex--and increasingly important, as solar energy plants proliferate across the United States. The industry and researchers, however, currently don't have a lot of answers. Researchers at the Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory are developing technology that can help.

An astonishing 82% decrease in the cost of solar photovoltaic (PV) energy since 2010 has given the world a fighting chance to build a zero-emissions energy system which might be less costly than the fossil-fuelled system it replaces. The International Energy Agency projects that PV solar generating capacity must grow ten-fold by 2040 if we are to meet the dual tasks of alleviating global poverty and constraining warming to well below 3.6 F (2 C). Solar is "intermittent", since sunshine varies during the day and across seasons, so energy must be stored for when the sun doesn't shine. Policy must also be designed to ensure solar energy reaches the furthest corners of the world and places where it is most needed. And there will be inevitable trade-offs between solar energy and other uses for the same land, including conservation and biodiversity, agriculture and food systems, and community and indigenous uses.

An astonishing 82% decrease in the cost of solar photovoltaic (PV) energy since 2010 has given the world a fighting chance to build a zero-emissions energy system which might be less costly than the fossil-fuelled system it replaces. The International Energy Agency projects that PV solar generating capacity must grow ten-fold by 2040 if we are to meet the dual tasks of alleviating global poverty and constraining warming to well below 2 C. Solar is "intermittent", since sunshine varies during the day and across seasons, so energy must be stored for when the sun doesn't shine. Policy must also be designed to ensure solar energy reaches the furthest corners of the world and places where it is most needed. And there will be inevitable trade-offs between solar energy and other uses for the same land, including conservation and biodiversity, agriculture and food systems, and community and indigenous uses. Colleagues and I have now published in the journal Nature the first global inventory of large solar energy generating facilities.

America's solar farms have a bird problem. Utility companies have been finding bird carcasses littering the ground at their facilities for years, a strange and unexpected consequence of the national solar boom. No one was quite sure why this was happening, but it was clearly a problem for a type of energy that was billed as being environmentally friendly. So in 2013, a group of utilities, academics, and environmental organizations came together to form the Avian Solar Working Group to develop strategies to mitigate avian deaths at solar facilities around the US. "There was very little research about the impacts of solar on birds," says Misti Sporer, the lead environmental scientist at Duke Energy, an electric utility in North Carolina, and the coordinator of the working group.