Abstract
An increasing number of bat fatalities is reported on some European wind energy facilities, inducing doubt on the impact of these infrastructures on the viability of bat’s populations. Since the middle of the 90’s it was supposed that most bat fatalities could be avoided by stopping wind turbines during overlapped periods of high bats activity and wind turbine production. In order to check this hypothesis, we have built a multi-factorial algorithm describing bats theoretical activity under of environmental conditions and integrated it in a plug-in of wind turbine SCADA (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition). It has allowed us a remote stop of wind turbines according to theoretical bats’ activity. The efficiency of this device, called “Chirotech”, was tested two consecutive years on the 8 wind turbines of Bouin (northeastern France), and two consecutive on the 9 wind turbines of Saint-Martin-de-Crau (Southern France), and one year on the the wind farm of Bisnett, (southern Ontario), Frontline (southern Ontario), Cruscades (southern France), Coume (Northern France) during bats fatality period. Analysis of the number of carcass found under regulated and controlled wind turbine demonstrates a significant decrease of fatalities under regulated wind turbine, with a power output loss <0,5 % of annual production. These promising results are relevant with those obtained in North America and offers new perspectives reduction of bat fatality induced by wind turbines facilities.