Effectiveness of an artificial intelligence-based system to curtail wind turbines to reduce eagle collisions.

Autor: Duerr AE; Bloom Biological, Inc., Santa Ana, California, United States of America., Parsons AE; Avangrid Renewables, LLC, Portland, Oregon, United States of America., Nagy LR; Avangrid Renewables, LLC, Portland, Oregon, United States of America., Kuehn MJ; Bloom Research, Inc., Santa Ana, California, United States of America., Bloom PH; Bloom Biological, Inc., Santa Ana, California, United States of America.; Bloom Research, Inc., Santa Ana, California, United States of America.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: PloS one [PLoS One] 2023 Jan 26; Vol. 18 (1), pp. e0278754. Date of Electronic Publication: 2023 Jan 26 (Print Publication: 2023).
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0278754
Abstrakt: Operating wind-power projects often includes protecting volant wildlife. One method for doing this uses an automated system to detect, identify (through use of artificial intelligence; AI), track animals (targets) and curtail turbines when risk of a collision is high. However, assessments of the effectiveness, in terms of identification accuracy and subsequent turbine curtailment of such systems are lacking. Over 1 year, we assessed such an automated system installed at a wind project in California, USA to determine its identification accuracy and rates at which "virtual" curtailments were ordered (without slowing turbines), for eagles (intended targets) and non-eagle targets. The system correctly identified 77% of eagles and 85% of non-eagles. Curtailment orders occurred 6 times more frequently for non-eagle targets (5,439) than for eagle targets (850). Greater abundance of common ravens that were misidentified as eagles influenced the effectiveness of the system by greatly increasing unintended curtailment orders. The balance between costs (price of the IdentiFlight system, reduced energy generation, turbine wear and maintenance) and benefits (reduced collisions between intended target species and turbines) may depend upon the biological setting, speed at which operators can curtail turbines, and the objectives of the operator when considering the IdentiFlight system.
Competing Interests: Authors do not have competing interests to declare.
(Copyright: © 2023 Duerr et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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