How drones are helping design the solar power plants of the future

A cottage industry is growing around new technology for solar power developers to design, build and operate solar farms to help compete with fossil fuel power
At the edge of a plot of muddy farmland, a few miles down the road from the University of California at Davis, an engineer takes a few quick steps across crop rows and lets go of a three-foot drone. Within seconds, the device – which weighs less than 2lbs and carries a powerful camera – ascends hundreds of feet into the cold, c