The second year of research to study the interaction between bats and wind turbines at the Casselman Wind Power Project shows that increasing cut-in speed of the turbines – the minimum wind speed necessary for turbines to begin spinning and producing electricity – during low wind periods in the late summer and early fall reduced bat mortality up to 93%.
The study was published online in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, a journal of the Ecological Society of America.
Iberdrola Renewables, the owner of the Casselman wind farm, partnered with independent conservation group Bat Conservation International (BCI) to implement the study at the southwestern Pennsylvania wind power project.
BCI's work is being conducted through the Bats and Wind Energy Cooperative, which is a coalition of the American Wind Energy Association, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and BCI. The cooperative's work focuses on identifying and addressing potential wind energy impacts on bats.
From late July to mid-October in 2008 and again in 2009, Iberdrola Renewables, working with BCI researchers, conducted a controlled experiment in which selected wind turbines at the Casselman project were stopped during relatively low wind speed nights as recommended by BCI.
Although it was crucial for this study, curtailing turbine operations is not likely to be the complete solution to reducing the impact on bats in all circumstances or locations, but it may be a practical solution at some northeastern U.S. sites where elevated bat mortality has been a concern, company officials say.
SOURCE: Iberdrola Renewables
