Nearly 500 Birds Found Dead at Wind Farm (battery installation)

[phantom power]

A West Virginia wind farm that I wrote about last month because of its battery installation was the site of a big bird kill in October, according to a consultant’s report for the Fish and Wildlife Service.

But it wasn’t the blades of the wind machines that killed the birds, according to the consultant. Rather, they seem to have been drawn to lights around storage batteries and an associated electrical substation.

The Laurel Mountain wind farm, near the town of Elkins, has 1.3 million batteries and electronic components that convert the wind power from direct current to alternating current and back again so the electricity can be put on the grid. The batteries and the electronic equipment are housed in 24 large containers on a gravel pad surrounded by five utility poles, each with a 250-watt floodlight on it.

...

The birds were migrating in conditions of high winds and fog, with a low cloud ceiling. “These conditions would likely have caused nocturnal migrants to fly closer to the ground, where they could have been attracted to the night lighting at the substation facility,” the report said. The birds “either collided with structures at the substation or circled to the point of exhaustion,” it said.

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/09/nearly-500-birds-found-dead-at-wind-farm/

[msongs]

1. 10 million turkeys found dead just before thanksgiving nt

[Lionessa]

2. If that's the case, that's an easy solution, dim or turn off the lights, unless

and until needed to be the full 1250watts of floodlights.