Wind farm radar

Things have been quiet on the wind farm front recently, or my news feeds have just decided they’re not newsworthy at the moment, so I had to look further afield for this story.

Over in Texas, it seems that they think thousands of migrating birds could be killed by the rotating turbine blades, so they have developed a radar system that can detect their approach and predict if they are likely to arrive at the wind farm. The installation, which is operated by Spanish operator Iberdrola, opened late last month, uses radar systems originally developed for NASA and the US Air Force to detect approaching birds from as far as four miles away, analyse weather conditions, and then determine whether they are in danger of flying into the rotating blades. If so, the system is programmed to shut down automatically until they have passed.

Normally, the birds would pass thousands of feet above the farm, but conditions such as storms can force them down from their safe altitude, and down into the area of the farm. The total shutdown period using this system is estimated to be about 40 to 60 hours per annum during migration time.

A number of wind farms have been turned down because of such concerns, but it’s not clear if this technology is limited to American sites, or has wider applications.

Of course, this has done nothing to please conservation groups, who still want the wind farms sited far from migration routes, claiming that they still cause major disruption to birds’ nesting grounds and habitat