New Bird Monitoring Innovation Challenge Takes Off

Moray Offshore Windfarm (East) Ltd has partnered with the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult to launch an innovation challenge to help wind farm developers better monitor and understand the behaviour of important species.

The challenge aims to inspire a novel bird tagging technology that will bring new levels of detail to the knowledge of avian habits and potentially help lower the operational costs of a wind farm through better environmental monitoring techniques, a saving that could be passed onto consumers, the partners said.

The project is being supported by Beatrice Offshore Windfarm Limited (BOWL), Marine Scotland, and Highlands & Islands Enterprise.

“Environmental monitoring is already a big part of any wind farm planning and post construction monitoring, onshore and offshore, but the reality is current monitoring techniques are expensive and not always representative of real-world conditions,” Catarina Rei, Technical Lead on the project for EDP Renewables, who are developing Moray East, said.

“Developing accurate technology is an essential step in improving what we do. We’ll be able to gain a greater insight into bird and coastal species behaviour, which will better inform the planning, consenting and operational stage of an offshore wind farm development.”

The new technology will initially be used to monitor the behaviour of a colony of greater black-backed gulls in the Moray Firth area.

“The greater black-backed gull is the ideal species to launch this innovation challenge with as a colony is found in the Moray Firth area, where there are planned wind farm developments,” Vicky Coy, ORE Catapult project manager, said.

“The technology developed for the tagging should minimise any interference with the birds’ normal activities but, like the bird colonies it will track, will have to be extremely resilient to the harsh weather conditions found around the UK’s coastline.”