The Renewable Energy Wildlife Institute and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory convened a virtual workshop facilitated by the Consensus Building Institute in April 2022 to identify recommendations on how to accelerate the rate of research and development, evaluation, and adoption of technologies for monitoring or minimizing wildlife impacts from wind energy. The workshop drew on expertise from stakeholder groups including technology developers, federal agencies, conservation nonprofits, and the wind industry. Over the course of four sessions, participants discussed incentives and barriers to technology development beginning with early field testing and validation, through full-scale experimental deployment, and finally broad-scale acceptance and commercial deployment.
Take-home messages from the workshop:
- There is a lack of consensus for criteria to determine the effectiveness of a technology, particularly in late stages of development.
- There are widespread views in how stakeholders define “acceptance,” and lack of clarity around which stakeholder group(s) are responsible for defining and facilitating “acceptance” of technologies.
- The legal framework surrounding wind/wildlife issues is complex; we lack a clearly defined path for the acceptance and application of technologies under existing conservation laws.
- The primary current regulatory driver of technology is based on endangered species, not largescale multispecies conservation, which leads to necessary but insufficient focus on a few species, rare events, and the particular and specific requirements and constraints of the Endangered Species Act.
- The successful integration and reliable operation of a technology into an operating wind energy facility presents myriad and complex challenges (e.g., engineering, biological, logistics, cybersecurity, seasonality, regulatory, etc.), and relies on close interdisciplinary collaboration.
- Early engagement with wind turbine manufacturers and wind energy operators may facilitate technology development and integration.
- Public and private funding are critical for developing and testing cost-effective technologies. However, each funding source can present challenges relative to administrative and program management activities, or public accessibility.
- Workshop participants proposed recommendations to facilitate the timely development and acceptance of technologies, including modifications to the regulatory framework, increasing collaboration between stakeholders, and pursuing funding for research and development.