In his keynote address to AWEA’s Wind Project Siting and Environmental Compliance Conference, March 22-23, AWEA CEO Tom Kiernan quantified the wildlife challenge facing the industry and energized the audience with his vision for successfully managing the challenge. AWWI’s interactive pre-conference forum on raptor and bat detection and deterrence technologies on March 22, and the AWEA conference itself, also bubbled up with useful discussions and takeaways for research priorities and next steps.
The scale of the wildlife challenge is coming to the fore now that the federal Production Tax Credit (PTC) and Clean Power Plan (CPP) ensure a relatively stable policy platform for wind power, noted Kiernan. Siting and wildlife-related challenges, if not addressed, could put a substantial share of wind energy’s projected development at risk.
At the same time, Kiernan pointed to the momentum that is currently driving recent wind-wildlife successes, such as the industry’s adoption of voluntary best practices to reduce impacts on bats, and the recent $4.5 million in DOE funding to research detect and deter systems. Kiernan also called on companies to contribute data to the American Wind Wildlife Information Center (AWWIC) database, given the importance of scientific analysis. To further power this momentum, Kiernan concluded, we must develop new solutions, approaches, funding sources, and strengthen partnerships.
AWWI’s interactive pre-conference forum and the AWEA conference itself both yielded useful discussions and takeaways for research priorities and other next steps. AWWI’s interactive pre-conference forum on raptor and bat detection and deterrence technologies engaged participants with such questions as:
- “What are metrics for success for detection and deterrent technologies?”
- “What funding models can drive development of these technologies?” and
- “What specific research questions need to be addressed?”
During discussion of the state of detection and deterrent technology for birds and bats, participants considered possible metrics of success from perspectives of the industry, science, and regulatory views. The ideas they generated clearly noted some similar and some different measures depending on whether the treatment target is birds or bats. Participants also reflected on future questions related to turbine design advances, changes in wind speed, and possibly in the future, incorporating devices into turbine design.
There is a lot of interest in advancing minimization technology and AWWI is at the forefront of the inquiry.
During the plenary, the AWEA conference sessions addressed technical, regulatory, and practical issues, and their connectedness. For example, the session on detect and deter technologies chaired by Tom Hiester, Senior Vice President, Strategy, RES America and AWWI Board Member, took a deep dive into the drivers for the development of such technology, which is seen as a major part of the pathway forward to ensuring that wind power can be developed and can operate in the context of a larger number of threatened and endangered species and the requirements to protect them.
A common theme throughout the AWEA conference was the basic need for data and analysis, in order to evaluate and improve detect and deter technologies, address siting challenges more accurately, and inform an evolving regulatory landscape.