Image credit: Oregon State UniversityThe expanding role of wind turbines in energy generation may be good news for the environment but bad news for birds, particularly eagles. That’s why new research is being developed at Oregon State University through a 27-month, $625,000 grant tasked with creating technology to ward off curious or wayward eagles, thereby preventing collision with the massive wind turbine blades.

Roberto Albertani of the OSU College of Engineering (awarded the grant by the US Department of Energy Wind Technology Office) and his team have a three-part system in mind for detecting and deterring the eagles from wind turbine blades boasting wingspans that would challenge those of a Boeing 747 and moving at speeds close to 200 mph.

The system will include a tower-mounted camera to determine if an object is approaching a turbine blade and what that object is. If the approaching object is an eagle or a golden eagle, a lower-level event is triggered in the hopes of distracting the bird from its course. The lower-level event is usually facsimiles of moving people, something that would surely ward off an eagle.

Additionally, vibration sensors are affixed to the root of each turbine blade for the detection of possible collisions and to distinguish between “types of thumps.” Micro-cameras, also affixed to the blade, will capture the footage of whatever it was that made contact.

So why is the research only concerned with protecting eagles and not other birds?

“If we strike a generic bird, sad as that is, it’s not as critical as striking a protected golden eagle, which would cause the shutdown of a wind farm for a period of time, a fine to the operator, big losses in revenue, and most important the loss of a member of a protected species,” Albertani said.

Primary field testing will take place at the North American Wind Research and Training Center in Tucumcari, N.M., and the NREL National Wind Technology Center in Boulder, Colo. Field work will also be done in Oregon and California.