The development and implementation of an innovative service, namely: Marine research on migrating birds using a stabilized ornithological radar

Project description

Along with the development of offshore wind energy projects, their cumulative environmental impacts increases. A significant area of negative impact of offshore wind farms concerns migrating birds, and that requires minimizing measures. Under the project 3Bird has commercialised a service of research of migrating birds flight, which involves studies of bird flight at higher sea levels,  and provides information on the number of bird flights at ceilings of <20 m. Measurements of migratory bird flights, collected by a stabilized ornithological radar, allow for calculations of the predicted bird mortality around wind farms.

Until the project has been implemented, detection studies at higher sea levels could not be achieved in that scope, and the innovation comes from stabilizing bird radars. The stabilizing platform, together with a structure connecting the platform to the radar system, was designed and constructed by the Norwegian project partner, STABLE AS, that also tested the sea swell compensation of the stabilized ornithological radar in close-to-natural conditions. The project also covered the testing of the stabilized radar unit by an Polish research institute, and the purchase of: ornithological radars, a transporting vehicle for the main radar and its adaptation for the transport of the electronic radar elements, a two-axle trailer for transporting the transceiver antennas with drive units.

Our new service of studying the flights of migratory birds, which is offered by no other entity on the market, brings environmental benefits in the form of reduced collisions of birds with offshore wind turbines, and financial benefits consisting in optimizing wind turbine shutdown times only to periods of increased risk of bird collisions with such wind turbines.