Wind power is one of the best available options for clean energy and is a needed supplement to solar power, which does not draw energy at night. However, one of the most common and serious critiques of wind power is that birds sometimes collide fatally with the windmill blades, creating a negative environmental impact unique to this mode of generating electricity.
A new report examining the performance of the offshore wind turbine TetraSpar at METCentre off the coast of Norway has revealed this site has experienced no bird collisions in almost two years, CleanTechnica reports.
Spoor, the Norwegian company in charge of monitoring bird activity, started its surveillance in January 2022. It has recorded over 21,000 bird passages in the nearly two years since. Despite the frequency of bird sightings in the area, not one has crashed into the turbine.
This is a remarkable finding. The team even adjusted the monitoring equipment in October 2023 to be more sensitive to bird collisions — and still, nothing, CleanTechnica confirmed.
Arvid Nesse is the head of the Marine Energy Test Centre, where the monitoring took place. He was enthusiastic about the results, per CleanTechnica, saying, "Analyses of birds and their movement patterns are important for the industry's continued focus on offshore wind in Norway. The knowledge we have gained through this project will be valuable for understanding the coexistence between birds and wind turbines.
"This is new Norwegian technology that we are proud to be involved in. The further development will focus on improving resolution for increased detection, better automated species identification, and tracking behavioral changes in flight activity."
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Proving that this type of offshore wind turbine doesn't kill birds, as well as collecting data on how birds interact with the equipment, is a vital step forward if we are to incorporate more inexpensive and clean offshore wind power into the world's energy grid. That will help reduce reliance on expensive, dirty energy, which will help lower air pollution and bring down Earth's temperature.
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