Posters

Abstract

As the energy transition is ramping up, the next years and decades will see a massive increase of wind turbine installations. There is a concern that this large scale deployment of (offshore) wind will have an significant effect on bird populations . Although the total bird mortality due to wind turbines is relatively low compared to other anthropogenic threats, the increase in the amount of turbines and the effect on specific species is still of concern. Current estimates of impacts are for a large part model based using monitoring as input. In order to improve these models there is a need to measure the actual bird collisions with wind turbines and where onshore, bird collisions can be monitored by searches, this is simply not possible offshore and a sensor based system is needed. The paper describes the comparison of a bird/bat impact detection system with ground based searches and tests the accuracy of the system. During the project described, the sensitivity of the system was improved and proven both with artificial impacts and with actual collisions. It reliably can detect impacts down to 8 grams with the new optical fibre sensors. Although ground based searches are the standard technique to study impact, these cannot register the exact timing and conditions of the collision and tend to be limited in time. They also require extrapolation to periods outside the measured time frame and estimations to correct for missing victims or areas that cannot be searched. With WT-Bird®, scientists, ecologists, and legislators have verifiable proof of nearly every collision, the detections can be linked it to the environmental conditions that contributed to the collision and enable (near) continuous monitoring that is not influenced by (variations in) nearby scavengers or the area that can be searched. Furthermore, it can also be applied offshore.