Birdlife South Africa has reported that birds from a minimum of 200 species have had deadly collisions with wind generators in South Africa and that almost each wind farm within the nation has recorded fatalities of threatened and precedence species.
However, there are answers within the works. One is a chook fatality mitigation pilot undertaking that includes portray and patterning turbine blades to enhance their visibility and scale back collisions. The South African Wind Energy Association (Sawea) and BirdLife South Africa have inspired wind farms to check this technique.
The Umoya Energy Wind Farm, 125km north of Cape Town, is piloting this undertaking.
Dr Rob Simmons, the CEO and co-founder of Birds & Bats Unlimited, stated 10 generators ought to be painted with a “signal red” color and 10 generators ought to be used as controls (remaining unpainted).
The blade-patterning undertaking was impressed by the same undertaking on the Smøla wind-power plant in Norway, which “showed a significant reduction in annual [bird] fatality rates”.
In this experiment, one of many three blades on a wind turbine was painted black, leading to 70% fewer fatalities on the 4 generators with painted blades than on the neighbouring (unpainted) management generators.
Bird fatalities from wind turbine collisions
Samantha Ralston-Paton, the birds and renewable power undertaking supervisor at Birdlife South Africa, stated that a minimum of 200 chook species have had deadly collisions with wind generators in SA and that almost each wind farm within the nation has recorded fatalities of birds from threatened and precedence species.
Wind farms in South Africa are required to watch their impacts on birds and report this to the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, and BirdLife SA.
“We extract the data from the reports and add it to a database of impacts (recording date, species, location, wind farm, survey methods, etc),” she stated.
Ralston-Paton stated the difficulty was not a lot the affect of individual wind farms on birds however the cumulative impact of a number of wind farms.
The endangered black harrier was a chief instance. “The actual number of individuals lost thus far may not seem huge, but by increasing their fatality rate by just three to five birds a year, we will accelerate its time to extinction. The population is already really small — around 1,200 mature individuals,” Ralston-Paton stated.
She stated it was vital to understand that with out mitigation, impacts may very well be ongoing throughout the 20-year lifespan of a wind farm, and with South Africa’s plans to extend the variety of generators considerably over the subsequent 10 years, mitigations might assist some endangered chook species to outlive.
Fatalities from collisions with wind turbine blades in South Africa have been recorded in different threatened and precedence species, together with the Verreaux’s eagle (categorised as vulnerable), the Martial Eagle (categorised as endangered), the Cape vulture (categorised as vulnerable), and the secretary chook (categorised as endangered).
According to Birdlife SA, almost each wind farm in South Africa has recorded fatalities of threatened and precedence species. ‘WEF’ signifies wind power amenities. (Graphic: BirdLife South Africa)
“As wind expands into new areas (such as Mpumalanga) new species will emerge as priorities, but raptors (especially eagles and vultures) tend to be the biggest challenge… The overlap of good wind resources and vultures in the Eastern Cape is also a real challenge as there are socioeconomic benefits to wind energy development,” Ralston-Paton stated.
“One wind farm reported almost 50 birds killed per turbine per year — mostly swifts (not threatened).”
Bat fatalities from wind turbine collisions
The South African Bat Assessment Association (Sabaa) stated that whereas bats have refined technique of detecting their atmosphere and orienting themselves (resembling echolocation), there was a regarding variety of bat fatalities at wind generators.
“This is because large turbine blades move too fast to allow bats to avoid collision. Furthermore, echolocating bats may not echolocate on known routes and so may be surprised by the appearance of new turbines in routine flight paths. Bats may also be killed at wind turbines due to barotrauma (internal injuries due to decompression in the zone of low air pressure near moving blades),” the affiliation stated.
At the Windaba power convention in Cape Town this month, Stephanie Dippenaar from Sabaa stated that “over 64 species of bats are threatened by wind turbines” and that bat fatalities might outnumber chook fatalities.
Apart from fatalities from collisions with blades and barotrauma, different antagonistic results of wind generators on bats embody roost disturbances and/or destruction, the destruction of foraging habitats, the displacement of bats from their foraging habitat and limitations to migration routes.
One answer to fight bat fatalities from wind turbine collisions is bat deterrent expertise. At Windaba, NRG Systems defined that bat deterrent techniques use ultrasound to discourage bats from coming into a turbine’s rotor-swept space.
NRG has efficiently examined this expertise and carried out techniques in South Africa, North America, France and Belgium. DM
