The word drone conjures many negative connotations, but in California, solar company SunPower is flying drones to maximize their solar output. The drones are being used to survey wide regions of land to help design solar farms that can fit more panels on a piece of land, more quickly and for lower costs than it previously could. A decade ago, a survey of a project site would require dispatching a crew to gather information such as the steepness of a slope and the vegetation of the region. With drones, SunPower is able to design projects 90 percent faster while helping the company cut down on the amount of land used by solar farms, which has additional benefits for the environment.