| How do Wind Projects affect Wildlife Populations? |
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| White Tail Deer at Buffalo Mtn. Wind Farm |
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| Avian Impacts of Wind Projects |
Avian Collisions with Wind Turbines:
A Summary of Existing Studies and
Comparisons to Other Sources of Avian
Collision Mortality in the United States: A study by the National WInd Coordinating Committee, an organization of wildlife, industry, regulators, and other stakeholders, who work collaboratively to develop industry wide best practices.
Best Practices to Mitigate Avian Impacts
- Initial Siting
- The industry experience at Altamont Pass in the early 1990s was a key case study the helped the industry develop the National Wind Coordinating Committee Wild and Wildlife initiative, an organization that works with environmental and wind industry representatives to create best siting practices for wind turbines in order to mitigate avian impacts. These include understanding where potential areas for higher impacts are located. If a project is located in these areas, the site should be more closely analyzed before proceeding to ensure avian impacts are kept to a minimum.
- Pre-monitoring
- Working with local organizations to identify what types of avian species need to be studied, then partnering with a professional consultant to conduct the potential impacts of wind projects on that particular species of bird.
- Post-monitoring
- Conducting site surveys to ensure that wildlife impacts have been mitigated. In the case that there are unforeseen events, wind developers often will take the proper steps to mitigate these impacts.
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TVA Studies on Avian Impact
Wind projects do occasionally kill birds and bats when the animals collide with the turbine. However, the number of bird deaths have been drastically reduced thanks to wind industry and wildlife group collaboration following unfortunate experiences early on in the industry. Changes to the modern turbine, proper siting techniques, and continued refinement of best practices have led to great reductions in wildlife fatalities.
A more recent development is developing mitigation strategies for wind turbines and bats. TVA has been at the forefront of these studies, as little was known about bat populations, let alone bat and wind interactions. The findings continue to hone in on best practices for mitigating deaths, including, but not limited to, pre-construction monitoring, post-construction monitoring, curtailment of turbines during migration season (typically late August - early September) during low wind speeds and typically at night.
Even though the impacts of wind energy projects on wildlife are minimal in comparison to traditional technologies such as coal and nuclear projects, the wind industry continues to actively update its best practices for wildlife mitigation, striving to minimize its environmental footprint.
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