YOUR NEXT FURNACE WILL BE A VOLT:

The program, called DeepSolar, combed through more than 1 billion satellite images and found 1.47 million rooftop solar systems or larger solar plants in 48 states. That's more than the 1 million systems in the Open PV database, an open-source project that uses voluntary reporting. It's more than twice as much as the 0.67 million counted by Google's Project Sunroof, another project that uses AI and satellite data (though because its methods aren't published, it's hard to know what accounts for the difference).

Knowing how many solar panels exist-and where they are-can help renewable power run smoothly and grow faster. "Utilities and system operators can figure out where there's more solar power being produced, in which neighborhoods, and adjust their operations and planning," says Ram Rajagopal, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford, and one of the authors of a new study about the project. "For example, a utility can decide to invest in storage after looking at this data."

Tweet   @brothersjudd