Clarissa Mars, Senior Biodiversity Team Leader, at Engie, a renewable energy company in the Western Cape, leads a project called “shutdown on demand.”
The project was implemented in December 2020, at two of Engie’s projects in Excelsior (Swellendam) and Golden Valley, to save birds from being killed by wind turbines.
It is an inflight monitoring by observers, who interact with the control room operators, to shutdown individual turbines, when a priority bird flies through a risk area.
Once a bird is 2 kilometers (km) away from a turbine, teams get ready to shut down.
At 1km, the turbine is closed.
Once out of the danger zone, observers call into operators to start up the turbine again.
Observers are stationed at points from 08am until 6pm, for 7 days.
Mars said at Exelsior, where she is based, there are 13 turbines, churning out 32 Megawatts of wind energy.
She has trained about 9 monitors and 1 Biodiversity Leader.
At Golden Valley, in the Eastern Cape, there are 48 turbines, producing 120 MW.
There are 27 monitors and 1 leader.
Mars said “all shutdowns and near-misses are recorded.
In just 44 months of implentation, 1,371 shutdowns, an equivalent of 95 hours and 21 minutes, has led to 6 bird fatalities. The rest of the birds were saved.”
John Gibbs, Birds and Renewable Energy Leader, at BirdLife South Africa, said shutdown takes about 43 seconds.
While wind farm owners are not obliged legally to shutdown, they are required to report on bird kills.
He also said work is underway, with SAWEA and the civil aviation authority, to find effective ways to perfect some solutions currently implemented.
About 82% of wind farms in South Africa, have had bird fatalities, of Species of Special Concern.
Samantha Ralston-Paton, Birds and Renewable Energy Project Manager, at BirdLife South Africa, said during a “Conservation Conversations” webinar, birds killed by turbines across South Africa, are Verreaux’s Eagle, Cape Vulture, White-backed Vulture, Black Harrier, Secretary bird and the Jackal’s Buzzard.
BirdLife’s multi interventions include research, developing policy and guidelines, promoting evidence-based decisions and sharing lessons learnt.
She said some solutions are being implemented, such as the patterning of blades (a project underway with the South African Wind Energy Association), managing food resources especially for vultures and “shutdown on demand.”
Pictures: Engie