Eagle eye development proposal
December 6, 2023
An $8 million camera system is set to be installed at Musselroe Wind Farm in a bid to better prevent Wedge Tail Eagle deaths.
An application has this week been lodged with the Dorset Council for the installation of an Identiflight (IDF) system, which monitors the surrounding air space to better track the flight paths of birds and force a shut-down of turbines should they fly within close proximity.
IDF is produced by Boulder Imaging of California, USA, and has been used with some success at Cattle Hill Wind Farm on the Central Highlands.
While there is no reference in the Development Application to bird mortalities at the Cape Portland site since Woolnorth Renewables established the businesses 10 years ago, it is understood there have been a small number of fatalities.
The proposal is for the installation of 30 Identiflight camera monitoring towers ancillary to the existing windfarm. Three towers would be located in the Environmental Management Zone and 27 towers would be located in the Agriculture Zone.
The project is being advertised for public submissions before a decision is made by Dorset Council.
The Environment Protection Authority said the proposal came within the ambit of a previous approval and therefore did not need any further approvals from the EPA board.
The system consists of monopole towers with “high precision optical cameras at the top of each tower, coupled with Artificial Intelligence (AI) networks that rapidly analyses the image-base data that is captured”.
“IDF stations are strategically located across a wind farm with approximately one IDF tower for each two wind turbines,” the DA states.
“Each IDF has visibility of an approximate one-kilometre hemisphere, and all cameras have overlapping fields of view, providing coverage of the entire airspace above and around the wind farm.
“Each IDF station is connected to a nearby turbine by power and communications cables which link the IDF stations to an IDF Base Station located within the wind farm control building.
“The IDF System tracks the movement of objects in the sky around the wind farm and quickly determines whether they are birds, then whether the bird is an eagle.
“If a bird is identified as an eagle, IDF commences tracking the eagle, recording its position, and trajectory in real time relative to turbines.
“Pre-defined curtailment conditions are then used to shutdown (curtail) turbines if the trajectory of the bird indicates it would cross the rotor swept area of a turbine.
“When an eagle is at risk, the IDF Base Station issues a signal … to curtail one or more turbines to avert risk of eagle collision. When the eagle is no longer at risk, another signal is sent to restart the turbine. The IDF system can track multiple eagles simultaneously and shutdown any number of turbines required to avoid a collision.”
Each tower would be 10m high.
Woolnorth Renewables is expected to provide more detail about the project and the history of bird fatalities next week.