Question

What are the methods to access the bird risk with wind turbine power system?

Answer 1

1. Safer locations

The simplest way to keep birds and bats away from wind turbines is to not build wind turbines where lots of birds and bats are known to fly. It's not always that simple, though, since many of the open, treeless expanses that attract birds and bats are also prime locations for harvesting wind.

2. Ultrasonic 'boom boxes'

Birds are mostly visual animals, but since bats use echolocation to navigate, sound might offer a way to repel them from wind farms. That's the idea behind ultrasonic "boom boxes," which can be attached to turbines and emit continuous, high-frequency sounds between 20 and 100 kilohertz.

3. New colors

Most wind turbines are painted white or gray, an attempt to make them as visually inconspicuous as possible. But white paint can indirectly lure birds and bats, researchers found in a 2010 study, by attracting the winged insects they hunt. White and gray turbines were second only to yellow ones in attracting insects, according to the study, including flies, moths, butterflies and beetles.

4. New designs

Beyond new paint and various animal-annoying devices, tweaking the structure of wind turbinescould greatly reduce the risk they pose to birds and bats. Engineers have come up with a wide array of wildlife-friendly designs in recent years, including some that barely resemble a traditional wind turbine.

5. Radar and GPS

Weather radar often picks up more than weather — last month, for example, a bizarre "cloud" over St. Louis turned out to be millions of migrating monarch butterflies. If wind farms have quick access to high-quality radar images like those, they could shut off their turbines to let flocks fly through.

6. Restraint

Researchers from Oregon State University are developing sensors that can tell when something hits a wind turbine blade, giving operators a chance to prevent more collisions by shutting turbines down. Along with those sensors — which researchers are testing by launching tennis balls at turbine blades — cameras could be mounted on turbines to show operators if birds or bats really are in the area.