Wind energy has expanded rapidly in the past 10 years, but will need to more than quadruple by 2050 in the U.S. alone to significantly reduce the risk of a rapidly changing climate. Wind energy is a major component to mitigating climate change – which is one of the biggest threats to wildlife. Like all forms of development, wind energy can have negative impacts on some species of wildlife. Cross sector partners are working together to understand these impacts and develop solutions.
Overview
Wind energy and wildlife stakeholders collaborate to understand wind-wildlife interactions and develop ways to mitigate adverse impacts. These efforts take place in the context of federal laws and state and local requirements. Standardized study methods help stakeholders assess risk, and tools such as the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Land-Based Wind Energy Guidelines aid development of wind projects while reducing impacts to wildlife.
01Regulatory Context, Study Methods, and Development Guidelines
By standardizing methods and expanding data accessibility, we are learning more about which species are most at risk from collision fatalities, and where and why. Wind energy facilities may also affect the quality or availability of habitat for some species, although habitat-based impacts are more complicated and less well-understood, and represent an important area for future research.
02What Do We Know about Impacts & Risk Factors to Wildlife and Habitat?
The first opportunities to avoid wildlife impacts occur during the earliest stages of wind energy project development. Screening prospective sites and predicting risks to wildlife can inform project design and are key to avoiding or minimizing habitat-based impacts. In some cases, project design, including placement of individual turbines, can also help to minimize collision risk for some species.
03Landscape Assessment and Siting Practices to Address Risk to Wildlife and Habitat
Technologies and strategies can help minimize bird and bat collisions with operating turbines. Curtailing, or shutting down, turbines during conditions when risk of collisions is higher is a common approach. More sophisticated methods include technologies that detect birds or bats near turbines and either deter them with audible or visual signals or curtail the turbine.
04Minimizing Collision Risk to Wildlife During Operations
When it is impossible to avoid or minimize adverse impacts to protected or at-risk species or their habitats, developers may offset or compensate for these impacts. Compensatory mitigation offsets adverse impacts of a wind energy project by taking actions or making payments or other contributions to conserve a species or its habitat.
