Paint it black! Novel idea to cut wind turbine bird deaths

 In Green Energy, News, Wind Turbines

Painting wind turbines black seems a strange move, said Midlands green energy expert Ron Fox, but it could be an imaginative way to reduce the number of birds being killed by the blades.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has launched a four-year trial to change the colour of the offshore windfarm blades after officials raised concerns that the government’s plans to increase the number of turbines in the North Sea could lead to more seabirds dying.

It is not clear how much the pilot scheme, which will run until 2028, will cost, but it includes a laboratory trial, then field testing from 2027 with all-black, striped and UV-painted turbines.

The estimated number of birds dying from flying into the blades of this form of green energy have been put at between 10,000 and 100,000 a year with an average of four to 10 per turbine per year.

A study in Norway, which looked at the effects of dyeing one wind turbine blade black, found it resulted in a 70 per cent drop in the number of bird deaths.

Iberdrola, a Spanish utility company, has tried another scheme by using decals, which are plastic transfers that look like eyes at the base of the wind turbine. This tactic was tested at the Lourdes-Tarbes-Pyrénées airport in south-eastern France and the number of birds of prey seen around the airport dropped by 65 per cent.

In the UK, energy minister Ed Miliband has vowed to support wind power and said the transition from fossil fuels to renewables is “unstoppable.”

In July last year, the Climate Change Committee estimated that by 2030, the number of annual offshore wind installations is needed to at least triple and onshore wind should double in that time to help the UK reach net zero and become a clean energy super power.

But not everyone agrees. The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra), the UK government department responsible for improving and protecting the environment, is concerned that the “foraging areas” used by seabirds can be very large and that boosting the number of offshore windfarms could have an adverse effect on sea birds.

In the US, Donald Trump has signed an executive order pausing all wind energy projects and has previously expressed concern about wind turbines’ impact on birds. He has been raising concerns about wind turbines since 2011 when North Sea windfarms were first proposed in view of his Scottish golf course in Aberdeen.

In December last year Trump told the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, to “get rid of windmills”.

“I think painting the turbines black is a good idea,” said Ron, of Noreus Ltd on the University of Keele Science Innovation Park. “Any scheme to boost green energy at the same time as helping save wildlife is commendable and should be encouraged.”

For more advice on wind turbines and on green energy, contact Ron Fox, on 0845 474 6641 or go to www.noreus.co.uk.

Caption: Unusual idea to reduce the number of seabirds killed by wind turbines blades. Picture: Wikipedia.

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