Paint it black: Wind Farm Commissioner Andrew Dyer backs calls for coloured turbines to save birds
Australia’s Wind Farm Commissioner Andrew Dyer will push for local trials of a strategy to reduce bird deaths from turbines: painting every third blade black.
Australia’s Wind Farm Commissioner will push for local trials of a simple strategy to reduce bird deaths from turbines: the painting black of every third blade.
A newly published 11-year Norwegian study shows simply painting every third turbine blade black cuts bird deaths by more than 70 per cent.
The black tips reduce motion smear, increasing their visibility to birds, with the trial in Norway eliminating eagle deaths.
Wind Farm Commissioner Andrew Dyer said he would raise the findings with state and federal governments and the industry and discuss the merits of an Australian trial.
“I think there are a number of (wind farm) sites on the mainland and in Tasmania which would be just not visible to neighbours and doing a trial or a test would present quite a good opportunity,” Mr Dyer said.
“I will raise it with the industry, the Environment Protection Agency, the Energy Minister and the federal department …
“Research could be undertaken by a university or research institute and you might get matching funding from government, industry and a university to undertake the exercise.”
He believed the Norwegian research, which monitored bird deaths at a wind farm in Smola, Central Norway, before and after turbines had every third blade painted black, was promising. The study, by researchers from the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research and Sweden’s Lake Annsjon Bird Observatory, found a 71.9 per cent decrease in bird mortalities at the painted turbines.
Mr Dyer said as well as conducting a similar trial in Australian conditions, it could be included in a revised federal recovery plan being drawn up for the endangered Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle.
Wedge-tailed eagle expert Nick Mooney said immediate adoption of the “paint it black” strategy at Australian wind farms was a “no-brainer”.
“This is the best piece of practical mitigation I’ve seen — everything else is so expensive and complicated,” Mr Mooney said. “This is so simple you could have it running at a whole lot of wind farms and get some really good data on its efficacy. And the low cost says there’s no excuse.”
Industry body Clean Energy Council was “supportive of further studies like that in Norway” but played down the damage wind farms inflicted.
“The planning system requires wind farm projects to do studies on their effects on bird and bat populations before and after construction,” a spokeswoman said. “These studies have shown that wind farms have minimal impact ...”
However, BirdLife Tasmania convener Eric Woehler said the “paint it black” strategy should be trialled. “We have got to explore every opportunity, given that over the years probably 50 to 60 Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagles have been killed by wind turbines,” Dr Woehler said.
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