Earlier this year, the Department of Energy awarded a team of researchers at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois a $1.3 million contract to develop an artificial intelligence platform dedicated to studying avian behavior at large-scale solar facilities around the US. The researchers hope the data gathered by their system will help ornithologists unravel the mystery of why our feathered friends are dying in droves at solar farms. “The important thing is to reduce solar’s environmental impact in every form,” says Yuki Hamada, a biophysical scientist at Argonne who is leading the project. “These avian issues are a concern and something that the renewable energy industry wants to understand and mitigate.”
