The Wind Wildlife Research Fund has raised $828,000 to support and implement seven priority research projects in 2019.
Launched in late 2018, the new fund, led by the wind energy industry, aims to speed the development and deployment of innovative solutions related to wind energy and wildlife. The seven research projects will be completed this year by scientists managed by the American Wind Wildlife Institute (AWWI), an independent nonprofit acting as the secretariat of the fund. Project results will undergo peer review in the fall and will be submitted to journals for publication or published as AWWI technical reports.
“The Wind Wildlife Research Fund is an innovative approach to addressing one of the wind industry’s greatest externalities,” says Miguel Prado, CEO of EDP Renewables North America. “More so than ever before, the wind industry is coming together to pool resources on targeted priorities. Together, we can rapidly advance solutions to key challenges for wind energy and wildlife and move technology forward. I am excited to see the wind industry and collaborators share and implement what we learn from this vital research.”
The projects address challenges that scientists, industry and conservationists have identified as highest-priority. For bats, four projects focus on refining smart curtailment practices and enhancing understanding of bat activities and fatalities. For eagles, two studies aim to refine curtailment and fatality estimates. For grouse, new information on movement and response of lesser prairie-chicken at a wind facility will be assessed in one project.
Garry George, renewable energy director for the National Audubon Society, says, “Climate change is the biggest threat to birds. In addition to the critical reduction of the emissions that cause climate change, the companies that founded and fund the fund are committing to conservation outcomes for birds and other wildlife with an investment in good science and research to inform siting and operation of turbines. That voluntary investment is an investment in a sustainable wind energy future for wind and wildlife that other energy industries would do well to adopt.”
The fund has also released a request for proposals soliciting research projects to begin in 2020 on better understanding and addressing wind and wildlife challenges. Proposals will be selected this summer.
More information on the research projects can be found here.
