AS SCIENTISTS WORK to compile better data, a few companies are experimenting with mechanization as a possible way to reduce fatalities at their facilities. At a wind farm in Wyoming, utility Duke Energy has installed a rotating camera that resembles R2D2 on stilts. The technology, called IdentiFlight, is designed to use artificial intelligence to identify birds and shut turbines down in seconds to avoid collisions.
Prior to IdentiFlight, technicians used to set up lawn chairs amid the 17,000-acre site and look skyward, sometimes eight hours a day, to track eagles. It was an inefficient system prone to human error, said Tim Hayes, who recently retired as the utility’s environmental development director. IdentiFlight has reduced eagle fatalities there by 80 percent, he added. “It can see 360 degrees, where humans can’t, and it never gets tired, never blinks, and never has to go to the bathroom.”
Wanted (by Scientists): Dead Birds and Bats, Felled by Renewables
A happy twist on the wind turbine issue. However, likely not cheap.