Helping save bats from wind turbines

One of the negative aspects of generating electricity from wind is the unfortunate death of birds and bats.

A new study shows that turning off the blades during periods of low winds reduces bat deaths by 70 percent. It makes sense, because bats don't like to fly in heavy winds. At least around here, they like still nights.

The study, performed by Bats and Wind Energy Cooperative and the Pennsylvania Game Commission at Pennsylvania's Casselman wind farm, found that turbines that were not curtailed on low wind nights were as much as four times as likely to result in bat deaths.


Curtailing the turbines did not even result in a great loss of electricity generation. The full study (PDF) showed that if all 23 turbines had been shut down, it would have resulted in a 3 percent annual loss of electricity generation.


Of course, in a low-margin business like electricity generation, every percentage point counts. But it is important for renewable energy sources to show that they can be friendly to nature.

I would like to see a related study on how to reduce bird deaths from wind turbines.