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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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6 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

Evaluating the effectiveness of a camera-based detection system to support informed curtailment and minimize eagle fatalities at wind energy facilities

The American Wind Wildlife Institute (AWWI – now Renewable Energy Wildlife Institute, REWI) – was appointed prime awardee of DOE award number DE-EE0007880 to lead a team of scientists, wind developers, and technology manufacturers in a collaborative evaluation of the effectiveness of a technology intended to help reduce eagle collisions with wind turbines. IdentiFlight, developed by Renewable Energy Systems (RES) in collaboration with Boulder Imaging, is an autonomous aerial monitoring and detection system. REWI partnered with ecological consultants, Western Ecosystems Technology, Inc. (WEST), to independently evaluate the performance of IdentiFlight reducing eagle collision risk under a suite of environmental conditions relative to the performance of a Biomonitor (human observer-based) Program. The project objectives were to 1) evaluate how IdentiFlight compared to biomonitors in detecting and identifying eagles under a suite of environmental conditions and 2) use the observation data to model how IdentiFlight and biomonitors reduced the eagle fatality prediction through informed curtailment. Field testing was to take place at two geographically distinct wind farms over two field seasons at each wind farm with a study design appropriate for meta-analyses across sites and years.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Technology Acceptance Workshop Meeting Proceedings, April 20-29, 2022

The Renewable Energy Wildlife Institute and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory convened a virtual workshop facilitated by the Consensus Building Institute in April 2022 to identify recommendations on how to accelerate the rate of research and development, evaluation, and adoption of technologies for monitoring or minimizing wildlife impacts from wind energy. The workshop drew on expertise from stakeholder groups including technology developers, federal agencies, conservation nonprofits, and the wind industry. Over the course of four sessions, participants discussed incentives and barriers to technology development beginning with early field testing and validation, through full-scale experimental deployment, and finally broad-scale acceptance and commercial deployment.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Developing and Evaluating a Smart Curtailment Strategy Integrated with a Wind Turbine Manufacturer Platform

The Renewable Energy Wildlife Institute lead a team of scientists, wind developers, and turbine manufacturers in a study to develop and test a “smart curtailment” system intended to help reduce bat collisions with wind turbines. The Vestas Bat Protection System (VBPS) is a newly developed software module within the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system of Vestas turbines. The VBPS combines data from commercially available environmental sensors and the turbine’s built-in sensors with the Vestas SCADA system. VBPS is designed to receive environmental data from sensors on the turbine such as temperature, wind speed, wind direction, time of day, and time of year, relays that information to the SCADA system to determine whether to execute turbine curtailments at any given time. The goals of this study were to 1) develop a bat fatality risk model based on bat activity data and environmental data collected in year 1, and to 2) evaluate the VBPS, using the bat fatality risk model to implement curtailment, in comparison to “blanket curtailment” (turbines curtailed when wind speed is below 5.0 meters per second (m/s)) and “control” (normally operating, feathered below 3.0 m/s) turbines in year 2. The field study took place at a wind energy facility in Iowa during the fall bat migration seasons (July – October) in 2021 and 2022. For VBPS to succeed as a viable strategy for the minimization of bat fatalities, it should meet or exceed the performance of blanket curtailment. Specifically, the VBPS should meet the following performance targets to demonstrate whether it an effective, practical risk reduction measure: (1) Turbines operating VBPS should have equal or fewer bat fatalities compared to turbines operating with blanket curtailment, and significantly fewer bat fatalities compared to control turbines; and (2) Turbines operating VBPS should have greater power production compared to turbines operating with blanket curtailment. The study was completed in accordance with the Statement of Project Objectives and within the terms of the Budget Justification. This Final Report describes the progress, challenges, and outcomes of the study.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Detection and Deterrent System in Reducing Golden Eagle Fatalities at Operational Wind Facilities

The Renewable Energy Wildlife Institute (REWI) was appointed as the prime awardee of DOE award number DE-EE0007883 to lead a team of scientists, wind developers, and technology manufacturers toward the overarching goal of evaluating the effectiveness of the current DTBird system in minimizing the risk of golden eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) and other large soaring raptors from approaching the rotor-swept zone (RSZ) of operating wind turbines. As part of this goal, the team set out to 1) quantify the expected reduction in collision risk for golden eagles from operation of the detection and deterrence modules in a manner that supports the approach used by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to assess and credit facility operators for their efforts to minimize predicted collision fatalities and 2) provide information to help improve the technology to maximize its effectiveness. DTBird is an automated detection and audio deterrent system created by the Spanish company Liquen, designed to discourage birds from entering the RSZ of spinning wind turbines. The system uses cameras to automatically detect airborne targets of interest, records each such event in an online database, and triggers a warning signal (loud sound) if the tracked object has moved close to the turbine. If the object moves even closer to the RSZ, a more aggressive dissuasion signal is broadcast. To meet our objectives, the team conducted a two-year experiment at the Goodnoe Hills wind facility in Washington state, in which 14 turbines were outfitted with DTBird units. Daily, each DTBird-equipped turbine was randomly assigned to a control or treatment group. Treatment turbines operated with DTBird running as intended—broadcasting warning or deterrent signals when DTBird detected a target within range. On control turbines, no sound signals were broadcast if a moving target triggered the DTBird system. The team also flew unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) designed to coarsely mimic the general size, weight, and coloration of golden eagles in programmed flight transects across DTBird detection ranges to quantify DTBird’s ability to detect intended targets and to evaluate factors that influence the probability of detection and DTBird’s response distances. Additionally, the team evaluated the behavioral responses of in situ eagles exposed to spinning turbines alone (visual and sound influences) versus spinning turbines plus broadcasted DTBird audio deterrents, to estimate the effectiveness of deterrence by the DTBird system. The data and results from these investigations were combined with those from a pilot study conducted at the Manzana Wind Power Project in California to better evaluate DTBird’s effectiveness across different landscapes.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Accelerating technology development to monitor and minimize effects from land‐based wind energy on birds and bats

While wind energy is a key sector of domestic energy production for the United States, operation of wind turbines directly and indirectly adversely affects certain species of birds and bats. The cumulative effect of wind turbine strikes can have both biological and regulatory consequences, and, in some cases, delay permitting and construction or affect ongoing operations. Technology can help quantify and minimize these effects, but the pace of development, acceptance, and adoption of technological solutions is slow. Although adopting cost‐effective technologies may reduce negative effects on wildlife and help achieve both energy production and conservation goals, consensus is lacking among developers, regulators, and the conservation community regarding how to define technology effectiveness and acceptance and how to develop a standardized process for doing so. Removing barriers to technology advancement requires deviating from the status quo. Changes include 1) creating incentives to mitigate impacts, 2) establishing options for research as mitigation, 3) rethinking how research is funded, 4) increasing stakeholder coordination, and 5) increasing the efficiency of research and development. We recommend the creation of a national framework to establish clear criteria and protocols for technology evaluation and adoption.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

The Global Spectra-Trait Initiative: A database of paired leaf spectroscopy and functional traits associated with leaf photosynthetic capacity (v1.0.0)

The Global Spectra-Trait Initiative (GSTI) aims to generate generalizable spectra trait models using reflectance data to predict leaf traits associated with the photosynthesis capacity of leaves. It comprises a synthesized dataset of leaf trait data, input datasets and code. Leaf traits include the maximum carboxylation rate of rubisco (Vcmax), the maximum electron transport rate (Jmax), the dark respiration, as well as the prediction of leaf nitrogen, leaf mass per area (LMA), and leaf water content (LWC). The dataset comprises >7500 paired observations from around 400 species from a broad range of biomes. This dataset comprises a zip file of the GSTI GitHub repository (https://github.com/plantphys/gsti), the synthesized database (.csv) and database metadata files. This dataset was updated on 2025-12-12 with minor edits to mirror the accepted manuscript version and GitHub release (Version 1.0.0 (ESSD accepted version)). Edits included minor changes to the project documentation on GitHub and removal of 12 duplicate entries from the database.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗