What if a wind turbine knew to shut down when a bird was too close? That vision is the goal of ongoing research in Golden, and birds themselves are helping develop a solution.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has been conducting avian research alongside various industry partners to drastically reduce avian deaths by collisions with wind turbines.
Colorado has 1,916 operating wind turbines, placing it eighth in the nation for turbine numbers.
Although those turbines accounted for only a small percentage of bird deaths annually, Jason Roadman, a technical engineer for NREL, said that percentage should be zero.
“Renewable energy is something that I and a lot of people strongly believe in, so we want to make it as low impact as possible,” Roadman said. “The rates of wild bird collisions are fairly low on these solar/wind farms, but they’re not zero. So anything we can do to reduce the footprint of the negative effects of alternative energy, we’ll make every effort toward.”
The bird research is an extension of an initial collaborative effort between NREL and radar developer Laufer Wind. Last year, Laufer Wind held demonstrations at the laboratory to test a radar system that could detect and deter nearby aircraft by turning on navigation lights on wind turbines to forewarn pilots.
Laufer Wind president Eric Laufer said they discovered similar technology could also be used to detect birds and subsequently shut down the turbines.
Early research was largely dependent on drones, but issues arose because their mechanical movements didn’t mimic the sporadic flight patterns of wild birds.
Then Roadman had an idea.
“Driving home after work one day, I remembered a vacation where I watched these falcon demonstrations and the bird would fly up, come back and land perfectly on his handler’s wrist,” Roadman said. “So, I thought if we could take the data from the autopilot on a drone, couldn’t we do the same with a real bird?”
Initial flight tests were conducted last year with Houdini, a Peregrine falcon from the Colorado Hawking Club. Roadman said those tests were essential to address their primary concern: whether this kind of research was possible.
And it proved very successful.
NREL and Laufer Wind were joined by Renewable Energy Systems Americas, a solar-energy equipment supplier, which introduced another system, Identiflight.
According to Tom Hiester, senior vice president of strategy for RES Americas, Identiflight uses a system of cameras to detect nearly 80 different characteristics that instantaneously determine what the airborne object is.
“It’s a real-time identification system,” Hiester said. “We then can selectively shut down only the turbines that could come in contact with the bird, so we’re also maximizing energy production.”
For the second round of flight tests for the two systems, conducted last month, Auburn University provided two eagles: Spirit, a 20-year-old bald eagle, and Nova, a golden eagle renowned for his halftime show appearances during Auburn football games.
The two eagles, each equipped with a Global Positioning System device, were released from a raised elevator lift, flew among the lab’s 14 turbines and returned to their handlers a short distance away. From the 25 flights over the span of three days, researchers were able to collect terabytes worth of data.
Roadman said the next steps are dependent on the results of that data, which will show engineers how each system performed. This could lead to revisions and possibly a third round of tests. The hope is to deploy the systems to the field to collect real-world results on wind farms.
“We count it a success because the flights were in a manner where the birds were safe and both systems had adequate number of opportunities to collect a large-enough data set to further the development of their systems,” Roadman said. “We want to have our partners continue to develop to the point where their systems can be deployed on wind farms and effectively start reducing these collisions.”
Roadman said the tests have been a career highlight.
“For those of us in this industry, I think we all agree if we’re going to be a green industry, we need to be green the whole way, and that means protecting our wildlife.”
Natalie Munio: 303-954-1666, nmunio@denverpost.com or @nataliemunio
