How AI Can Protect Birds from Wind Turbines

Wind energy is a key factor in the fight against climate change. It gives us clean, renewable power with zero greenhouse gas emissions. That’s why countries globally are investing heavily in wind farms to garner both onshore and offshore wind to meet their climate targets.

Wind turbines have become a familiar sight in rural areas and out at sea, helping the world move towards a cleaner, more sustainable future. By generating electricity from the wind’s kinetic energy, they convert something as natural as moving air into usable electrical energy.

But while wind power is one of the most promising forms of renewable energy, it presents a serious conflict with birds, particularly raptors which can collide with spinning blades. As more offshore turbines and land-based farms are built, this issue is causing growing concern among conservationists, creating a stark clash between two essential goals: mitigating climate change on the one side and conserving biodiversity on the other.

AI technology and wind turbines

Because offshore wind power and land-based wind energy are so vital in the fight against climate change, researchers are using Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to make wind farms safer for birds. AI offers a way to harmonise these competing needs, enabling safer skies for raptors and ensuring wind energy is more efficiently and responsibly sited.

Modern systems can track wind direction and detect approaching wildlife in real time, temporarily pausing turbine rotation when birds are at risk. By combining data on weather, migration patterns, and turbine behaviour, AI helps reduce fatalities without compromising clean energy production. In this way, technology offers a path forward – protecting wildlife while ensuring that renewable energy continues to power our future.

Why raptors are uniquely vulnerable to wind turbines

Since the first wind turbine was invented by James Blyth in 1887 to power his holiday home, the benefits of wind power in reducing pollution and boosting energy independence have become undeniable. But the rapid expansion of wind farms has intensified scrutiny of their environmental impact: wind turbines present a unique and visible threat to birds and bats.

The size and speed of the `egg whisk’ style horizontal axis wind turbines developed by French inventor Georges Darrieus in 1931, create a lethal hazard for creatures navigating their traditional routes.

While many bird species can be affected by wind turbines, raptors (eagles, hawks, vultures, kites, and falcons) are particularly vulnerable. Their behaviour and physiology make them susceptible to collision with vertical axis and horizontal axis wind turbines for these key reasons:

• Low Manoeuvrability at Speed: Large soaring raptors aren’t as agile as smaller birds. They often approach turbine blades too fast and at angles that make last-minute avoidance difficult.
• Hunting Behaviour and `Tunnel Vision’: When raptors are focused on prey or a distant landmark, they can get `tunnel vision’. This makes them less aware of their immediate surroundings, including those huge, fast-moving blades.
• Motion Smear: The rotating blades can sometimes appear as a blur, or `motion smear,’ especially in certain light conditions. This makes them difficult to see as a solid, lethal object.
• Habitat Attraction: Sometimes, wind farms are built in areas naturally attractive to raptors for foraging or nesting, which increases their presence in the danger zone.

How wind turbines work

To understand how wind turbines work, it helps to look at their design. There are two basic types: most of the large machines we see today are horizontal axis turbines with three blades that rotate in the same direction, turning an electric generator inside a nacelle. The yaw system ensures the three blades face the wind direction, capturing the most kinetic energy possible.

The efficiency of wind turbines depends on wind speed, air pressure, and rotor diameter, while materials like carbon fiber, cast iron, epoxy resin and aluminum alloys help balance strength with lighter weight to reduce maintenance costs.

The second design adopts a different approach. Vertical axis wind turbines don’t need to turn toward the wind because their blades can catch the breeze from any angle. These wind turbines work well in turbulent wind flow conditions or for small wind turbines placed closer to homes or urban environments.

However, most large-scale projects still rely on horizontal axis models, especially at sea where offshore wind turbines benefit from strong, consistent winds. The electrical energy they produce feeds into the utility grid, reducing reliance on fossil fuels.

Iconic species at risk from wind turbines

The wing span of the following magnificent raptors unfortunately makes them vulnerable to the wind turbines that are sited in many parts of the world where they find their natural habitat:

• Golden Eagles: These birds often inhabit mountainous areas where wind farms are sited. Their soaring, powerful hunting techniques put them directly in the path of turbine blades.
• White-tailed Eagles: Europe’s largest eagle, these coastal dwellers are susceptible, especially as offshore wind farms expand.
• Griffon Vultures: These scavengers often soar at high altitudes that put them at risk, particularly in parts of Southern Europe.
• Red-tailed Hawks: A common raptor in North America, they can be caught unaware during flight.
• Condors: Critically endangered species like the California Condor, with its enormous wingspan, face a serious threat from wind farms in their limited habitats. Historically, places like the Altamont Pass Wind Farm in California became notorious for high raptor mortality rates.

AI: a smart solution to the conflict between birds and wind turbines

AI is proving to be a powerful tool for ecology. AI involves machine learning, computer vision, and predictive modelling. It can be applied across the entire life cycle of a wind farm, helping us move from a reactive monitoring approach to proactive, automated protection.

1. Real-time detection and automated shutdown

One of the most impactful applications is using smart cameras and sensors for real-time bird detection.

• Vision systems: High-resolution cameras, often with thermal imaging, continuously scan the airspace around wind turbines.
• AI Recognition: AI models, trained on huge datasets of bird flight patterns, can instantly identify different species (like distinguishing a Golden Eagle from a bat) and track its path accurately.
• Predictive analytics: The AI can then predict, often seconds in advance, if a raptor is on a collision course with a wind farm. When a high-risk path is identified, the AI system immediately triggers a mitigation measure:
• Turbine shutdown/curtailment. It signals wind turbines to slow down or completely stop their rotor blades until the bird has safely passed. This automated, targeted curtailment is revolutionary. Previously, operators might have shut down wind turbines for entire seasons based on general migration patterns, which wasted significant energy. AI minimises this energy waste while maximising protection for bird populations. Systems like Identiflight are already proving this concept, showing significant reductions in raptor mortality in early trials.

Two ways to deter birds away from wind turbines include:

• Acoustic deterrents: Targeted, harmless signals designed to encourage a bird to change its flight path away from wind turbines.
• Visual deterrents: Research into patterns on rotor blades that might make them more visible to birds.

2. Smarter siting of wind turbines and predictive risk modelling

Smart siting is the single most effective way to avoid conflicts between birds and wind turbines. AI is key here:

• Risk mapping: AI models analyse huge amounts of spatial data including topography, weather, migration corridors and collision records. By combining this information, machine learning creates risk maps that predict where wind turbines would cause minimal harm.
• Optimised layouts: Even within a suitable area, AI can help optimise the wind farm layout. It might suggest wider spacing between wind turbines or specific positioning to avoid known flight corridors, reducing the need for costly post-construction fixes.

3. Continuous monitoring and data fusion

Once wind turbines are built and a wind farm is operational, AI systems help ensure compliance and continuous adaptation.

• Automated monitoring: AI automates labour-intensive tasks like carcass detection from aerial imagery and analysing audio/video for collision events. This faster, cheaper monitoring allows developers to act quickly if bird mortality levels exceed predictions.
• Learning from telemetry: GPS tags on individual birds give us massive datasets on movement. AI finds patterns in this telemetry data, flagging flyways and seasonal behaviour changes. Better forecasts mean wind farm operators can plan temporary shutdowns on peak migration nights.
• Integration with weather data: Looking ahead, AI systems will get even smarter by integrating real-time weather data (which heavily influences bird flight) and broader migration forecasts. This could allow for proactive, regional-scale turbine management.

Finding the balance: the path forward for wind turbines

We know that abandoning wind power isn’t a viable option when it comes to generating electricity. Climate change itself poses a fundamental risk to countless species. Instead, we must embrace intelligent solutions. AI is a powerful tool to achieve this balance, but we must use it thoughtfully. It is possible to envisage a future where wind turbines lie mostly silent as a flock of birds passes, then resume turning and generating electricity once the flock has moved on.

Here are the vital things we need to consider when it comes to wind energy:

• The energy trade-off: AI systems must balance conservation gains with operational practicality. If a system triggers false positives (mistaken detections) and shuts down wind turbines too often, it reduces energy yield and raises the costs of generating electricity. The technology must be accurate.
• Ethical data sharing: Telemetry data is sensitive, especially concerning rare nests. We need robust, transparent data sharing frameworks to allow models to improve without compromising conservation security.
• AI complements, it doesn’t replace: AI must enhance, not replace, careful ecological study, environmental impact assessment, and local conservation knowledge. Technology is a tool, but it requires our human expertise to wield it effectively.
• The challenge isn’t just technological now; it’s institutional. We need to integrate AI into policy, fund its deployment, and ensure transparent monitoring. By doing this correctly, we can ensure that wind energy remains a key part of our renewable energy approach.

Clever co-existence: wind energy and wildlife all on one side

Wind gives us a source of boundless, cost effective renewable energy for the electric grid, and it has been demonstrated that wind turbines work, despite early scepticism. With the advent and rapid development of AI, we can ensure that our pursuit of clean power and renewable energy doesn’t come at the expense of wildlife.

By deploying smart, adaptive systems, we can dramatically reduce bird mortality at wind farms, transforming wind turbines from being potential threats into harmonious components of our sustainable future. The challenge is all about achieving clever co-existence rather than a compromise.