Drone thermal scans used to be a specialty service flown by outside vendors once a year. On many utility-scale solar sites, they are now something the O&M team does itself, sometimes after every hailstorm or string alarm. That makes Part 107 drone certification one of the most useful credentials a solar technician can add, and one of the cheapest in time.
This guide walks through how the FAA remote pilot certificate works, which Part 107 rules shape a solar inspection flight, what the inspection itself demands beyond the license, and how to turn drone skills into a better O&M role.
Why solar sites need certified drone pilots
A utility-scale array covers hundreds of acres of modules. Walking it with a handheld thermal camera is slow, tiring and inconsistent from one row to the next. A drone with a radiometric IR camera covers the same ground in a fraction of the time and produces a georeferenced map of every hot cell, dead substring and string outage. The NREL PV O&M best-practices guide includes high-resolution aerial IR imaging as a way to find failed strings, modules and cells.
The FAA does not care that you are flying on private land for your own employer. If the flight supports a business, it is a commercial operation, and the person at the controls needs a remote pilot certificate. Under 14 CFR 107.12, you either hold the certificate or you fly under the direct supervision of someone who does and who can take over immediately.
Part 107 drone certification: eligibility and steps
The FAA's Become a Drone Pilot page sets out the process for first-time pilots.
Eligibility
- At least 16 years old
- Able to read, speak, write and understand English
- In physical and mental condition to fly safely
- Pass the Unmanned Aircraft General, Small (UAG) knowledge test
The steps
- Create a profile in IACRA, the FAA's airman certification system, to get an FAA Tracking Number (FTN).
- Schedule the UAG test at an FAA-approved Knowledge Testing Center. The FAA testing page routes scheduling through PSI. Bring government-issued photo ID.
- Pass the test.
- Back in IACRA, complete FAA Form 8710-13 and enter the 17-digit exam ID from your test report. It can take up to 48 hours to show up.
- Sign and submit. After a TSA security background check, you get an email to print a temporary certificate.
- Your permanent card arrives by mail. Carry it whenever you fly.
If you already hold a manned pilot certificate under Part 61 with a current flight review, the path is different: you take the free online ALC-451 course on FAASafety.gov instead of the knowledge test, then validate in person.
Cost and scoring: The test is taken at a commercial testing center and carries a fee; check the current amount when you schedule through PSI. The FAA pages we used do not publish the fee or passing score, so confirm both at booking rather than relying on third-party prep sites.
Staying current
Section 107.65 requires that you passed the knowledge test or completed recurrent training within the previous 24 calendar months. The FAA's ALC-677 recurrent course is online and free. Put a reminder on your calendar the day you pass, because lapsed currency means you cannot legally fly the next morning's inspection.
The Part 107 rules that shape a solar flight
The UAG test covers airspace, weather, loading, emergency procedures and regulations. On a solar site, these are the rules you will run into most often:
| Rule | What it says | What it means on a solar site |
|---|---|---|
| 107.31 Visual line of sight | The remote pilot or a visual observer must see the drone with unaided eyes throughout the flight | Large sites are flown in blocks, moving your launch point as you go |
| 107.51 Operating limits | Max 400 ft above ground (or within 400 ft of a structure), 100 mph, 3 statute miles visibility, 500 ft below and 2,000 ft horizontally from clouds | IR mapping flights fly far lower than 400 ft anyway; cloud clearance rarely binds, but cloud cover ruins IR data first |
| 107.41 Controlled airspace | Class B, C, D and airport-surface Class E airspace require prior ATC authorization | Check every site; some arrays sit near regional airports |
| 107.29 Night and twilight | Anti-collision lighting visible for 3 statute miles | Mostly irrelevant for daytime IR, but useful for nighttime electroluminescence work |
| 107.39 Over people | Only over participants, people under cover, or under a qualifying category | Brief vegetation crews and contractors before you fly |
| 107.9 Accident reporting | Report to the FAA within 10 days for serious injury, loss of consciousness, or over $500 in damage to property other than the drone | A drone crash into a module string can cross that threshold |
Rules in the table are paraphrased from 14 CFR Part 107 on eCFR.
Waivers and beyond visual line of sight
Flying a whole site without line of sight would be the obvious efficiency gain, and it is waivable. The FAA's Part 107 waiver page lists 107.31 (visual line of sight) among the rules you can apply to waive, now through the Aviation Integrated Safety (AIS) Services system. Applications must spell out hazards and mitigations, the FAA aims to decide within 90 days, and you have 30 days to answer any follow-up questions. In practice, BVLOS waivers are held by companies with formal safety programs, not by individual techs.
What a solar inspection flight requires beyond the license
Your certificate makes the flight legal. It does not make the data useful. Thermal inspection has its own conditions, drawn largely from IEC TS 62446-3:
- Irradiance at or above 600 W/m2 on the plane of the array. Raptor Maps, a major solar inspection platform, asks pilots to photograph a pyranometer reading as proof.
- Timing: Raptor Maps also rules out capture within 120 minutes of sunrise or sunset.
- Camera: at least a 640 x 512 IR sensor, with the gimbal pointed perpendicular to the plane of array, per Raptor Maps.
- Resolution: around 3 cm per pixel on the module, which Teledyne FLIR notes gives roughly a five-by-five pixel block per cell.
- Weather: FLIR's summary of the standard lists wind under about 17 mph and cloud cover no more than 2/8 of the sky.
- Overlap: Raptor Maps plans IR flights at 65 percent front and 35 percent side overlap.
- Site energized: a de-energized block shows nothing useful.
Before every flight, run the same short pre-flight routine: confirm airspace and any authorization, check the weather against both Part 107 limits and the IR conditions above, brief anyone working in the block, inspect props and batteries, and confirm the camera is set to radiometric capture. Writing it down as a checklist is what separates a professional operation from a hobby flight.
Those conditions often narrow the flying window to the middle of a clear day, which is also when it is hottest on the ground. Plan water, shade and battery rotation accordingly.
Drone solar inspection jobs: where the certificate helps
There are three realistic ways Part 107 shows up in solar work:
- In-house O&M tech who flies. The most common case. You are a technician first, and the drone is a tool for post-storm checks, string outage hunts and annual scans. Your certificate is a differentiator on the resume.
- Inspection services technician. Third-party firms that fly fleet-wide IR programs hire pilots who understand PV. Expect travel; our comparison of local versus traveling crews covers that lifestyle.
- Pilot without PV background. The weakest position. Flying is the easy part to teach; knowing that a hot substring means a bypass diode issue is the valuable part.
For the analysis side, pair Part 107 with thermography training. See our guide to infrared thermography certification for solar technicians, including the sUAS Level I course.
A practical study plan for working techs
- Week 1: Create your IACRA profile and get your FTN. Read the Part 107 regulation once, start to finish.
- Weeks 1 to 3: Study sectional charts, airspace classes and weather reports (METARs and TAFs). These are where most new pilots struggle.
- Week 3: Take timed practice tests until you are scoring comfortably, then schedule the UAG test.
- After passing: Fly a small drone in open space until manual control is second nature, then learn your employer's mapping app.
- First site flights: Fly with an experienced pilot, run a pre-flight checklist every time, and log every flight.
Bottom line
Part 107 drone certification is a few weeks of evening study for a credential that every utility-scale O&M team can use. Get it if you work on a large site or want an inspection role, keep your 24-month recurrent training current, and pair it with PV and thermography knowledge. The pilot certificate opens the door; understanding what the thermal image means is what gets you hired.