Dark side to solar panels

Catch the energy of the sun. It's abundant, free and clean. Right? Rooftops glimmering with solar panels turned skywards are slowly coming up as the solution to erratic or inadequate power supply. But wait, there is a new fear being voiced. A threat to biodiversity.

Shining dark surfaces of the solar cells, which reflect light, resemble water surfaces resulting aquatic insects like mayflies depositing their eggs on the solar panels. The solar panels are posing a false habitat hazard to more than 300 species of insect. This leads to a reproductive failure which may have far-reaching cascading adverse effects to the food chain. The insects fall a prey to predators. This data was discovered from a research held at Hungary.

Reflected sunlight from expanses of dark surfaces that are shiny like glass-clad buildings, even vehicles, solar panels of all sizes, becomes a worrisome new source for polarized light pollution. This is what causes the caddis flies and other aquatic insects to mistake shining surface to be water surface to lay their eggs.

However, there is a solution. The group discovered that the aquatic insects can be warned off by fixing white-color grids and other methods to break up the polarized reflection. And efficiency not greatly affected either.

This research is significant as in it brings attention to the many aspects that need to be studied before we go for the total energy transformation from fossil to green.