Reducing impacts of Wind energy on Nocturnal flyers to aid Green transition and Sustainability

Wind energy is an important tool for combating climate change. Unfortunately, it can have negative consequences for wildlife, in part due to the risk of collisions between flying animals and the rotor blades of the wind turbines. The Oslo-based startup Spoor is working to reduce this conflict by applying automated bird-tracking methods to video streams of wind turbine airspace. Like eyes, video cameras rely on light to observe the world around us. Spoor’s initial efforts have therefore been aimed at daytime bird monitoring, where high visibility can be achieved with conventional security cameras. However, the night skies are not empty—bats, owls, and migrating birds also face collision risks. For nature and industry to coexist, nighttime fliers need the same level of protection as their daytime counterparts. To address this, Spoor, in collaboration with BatLab Norway (NMBU), is launching a three-year innovation project to better understand and quantify the activity and behavior of nocturnal fliers around wind turbines. The project will expand Spoor's current daytime monitoring solution into nighttime monitoring using nighttime camera techniques such as infrared lights and thermal (heat) vision. It will then combine those techniques with Spoor's solution for preventing animal-turbine collisions, to make turbines safer for nighttime fliers. Furthermore, this newly developed nighttime monitoring system will be used to study the flight behavior of bats and nocturnal birds at both natural and turbine sites, thereby increasing our knowledge of how and when nighttime fliers are at risk from turbine blades. Throughout the project, the findings will be used to develop evidence-based guidelines for monitoring nocturnal fliers around wind turbines. These guidelines will be shared with stakeholders both within the wind energy industry and in the broader conservation and policy-making communities, ensuring that wind energy expansion and wildlife protection go hand in hand.

WINGS aims to develop and enhance methods for detecting and tracking bats and nocturnal birds in nighttime conditions, particularly in the context of wind turbine operations. The initiative consists of six distinct work packages (WP1-WP6) that focus on software development, field research, testing existing technology, and disseminating findings. WP1 focuses on expanding Spoor’s tracking algorithm to work with nighttime video, specifically utilizing both thermal and IR video. The goal is to enhance the algorithm to detect and track bats and birds in various conditions.. WP2 integrates the nighttime tracking system with Spoor’s in-development curtailment solution, refining it based on distance limits, bird and bat behavior, and simulated curtailment results. This will yield an enhanced curtailment system to be deployed for nighttime monitoring. WP3 involves fieldwork to define the detection limits of both thermal and IR cameras by recording bats in controlled conditions. The findings will inform setups for monitoring and contribute to future WPs focused on curtailment and behavioral study. WP4 monitors bat and nocturnal bird behavior at natural sites, using video and acoustic methods over 12 months. This work will quantify differences between these monitoring techniques and yield data on seasonal and environmental variations in bird and bat activity, which will inform academic publications. WP5 extends the behavioral study to wind turbine sites, comparing Spoor’s curtailment solution to an acoustics-based system. This WP will provide a detailed analysis of bird and bat activity near turbines and the efficacy of curtailment systems, with findings to be published in academic journals. Finally, WP6 will synthesize the results of WP1-WP5 and existing literature to develop guidelines for nighttime monitoring of wildlife at wind turbines. These guidelines will be disseminated to industry stakeholders and contribute to the development of EUROBATS guidelines.