Wildlife Acoustics’ SMART System Protects Bats

Mona Doss from Wildlife Acoustics discusses how wind operators can address bat conservation and regulatory risks with their SMART System. Their technology uses acoustically triggered curtailment to protect bats while maximizing wind energy production.

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Allen Hall: let’s get started with the challenge facing Wind operators today. the Tricolored bat is in serious trouble and it’s creating regulatory risks for the wind industry. Can you walk us through what’s happening and why this matters for wind operators? 

Mona Doss: It matters because last fall, the US Fish and Wildlife introduced some, voluntary wooded guidelines for the tri-colored bat.

this, particular bat species population has, declined and is, primarily being affected by two factors. one being, something called, white nose that’s affecting many back. Species across, north America. But the other is for some reason the tricolor bats. And [00:01:00] we’re still looking at a lot of bat researchers, and I’ll leave that to the bat biologist to address more specifically.

but they are, being affected very much by, wood turbine mortality. So it’s gonna be a balance between trying to address back conservation as well as the needs for energy production, which we all want from a, wind farm. 

Allen Hall: And the white nose fungus is a really deadly disease for the tricolor bats.

I, I’ve seen numbers upwards of 90%, mortality rate, when that fungus, affects them. And that fungus is pretty much exists where they live. it’s something hard to, stop. 

Mona Doss: Yeah, there’s been a lot of great research by, various universities and VE Conservation International here in North America, trying to understand the nature of the fungus.

And, how there might be possibilities to, treat, bats that are exposed to that fungus. All of that at this point is still very experimental. but that fungus has wa out many, [00:02:00] bat ber macular of various species. You might have had bat ber macular that had tens of thousands of bats that are literally just down to a few dozen.

Joel Saxum: That’s extreme. That’s, that’s like wiping out entire populations, entire ecosystems. 

Mona Doss: It’s very extreme. so there’s been a lot of monitoring for the progress of this fungus. It was first founded in New York a few years ago. It’s been slowly migrating, towards the west. so you’ve got the fungus affecting the bats and you’ve got, the demand for more clean energy, with wind farms that are also contributing to bat mortality.

And these poor bat species are suffering from both sides at the moment. 

Allen Hall: It’s very serious. Mona, what are the consequences for wind operators who don’t proactively address this sort of dual threat to the. White nose syndrome, wind turbines, and fungus. obviously they’re gonna be asking wind turbine operators to do something.

What does that look like? 

Mona Doss: Yeah. right now, [00:03:00] when the, wind farm operators are going in front of environmental regulators to, get their permitting all approved, there’s a negotiation that’s occurring between balancing the bat species protect protection based on maybe pre-construction, present servings for bats.

And the need for energy production. But as more and more bat species get listed as their populations are declining and they become species of concern, you’re gonna have an increase in, what’s called blanket curtailment. so that typically is looking at a site and, requiring the operator to pause turbine operation during certain times of the year under certain wind conditions, regardless of whether or not there’s actually a bat present in that location.

Allen Hall: So they’re setting up time blocks where you have to slow down the turbines or stop the turbines, basically. 

Mona Doss: Exactly. 

Allen Hall: Where is this happening right now? What part of the us? 

Mona Doss: Yeah. a lot of it is occurring in the Midwest, where there are several already species at risk. [00:04:00] the Indiana bat, the Northern Longyear bat, several species have a requirement for pausing turbine operation at those wind farms.

depending on the locations and weather. Those species were identified as being potentially in the area during the pre-construction surveys. 

Joel Saxum: So we’ve seen some of these, like blanket, like I like the term blanket curtailments in the eu, right? For different, avian species, different bat species.

And you’re starting to see a lot of solutions pop up over there, but mainly they’re driven by regulation, right? So the difference here in the states, I guess is, Usually regulation for birds or bats doesn’t pop up unless they cross state lines. Then it becomes a federal issue, and then the feds will regulate something like that’s like the, the Federal Migratory Bird Act.

They weren’t, really monitored or not monitored, regulated at a federal level until, oh, these are crossing state lines. It’s a federal thing. so the US Fish and Wildlife [00:05:00] Service, they’ve put some, guidance. Do we see? And guidance and there’s like violations, civil penalties, ESA violations.

Do we see actual more regulation coming down the pipeline for this? 

Mona Doss: I suspect that there will, currently, for instance, with the tricolored BAT is considered voluntary guidance. but more and more species are getting listed. So you mentioned the eu. In the eu, eu all bat species are protected. but even in North America, outside of the US and Canada, Ontario has proposed.

New, guidance for bat species. At risk. That right now has a option, two options. One option is the common approach, which means you’re doing glyco, curtail up to seven meters per second during certain times of the year. Or the alternative would be approaches similar to, like acoustics produces, which is something called acoustically trigger curtailment.

And with a TC we are primarily, [00:06:00] integrating with the wind fire systems. And when we detect a bat that meets certain activity levels or criteria, we communicate with that wind farm and say, Hey, bats are here. Let’s let you know that. And then the wind farm can feather those blades and pause operation.

Allen Hall: So the US Fish and Wildlife has issued that guidance. It’s voluntary at the minute, but it may turn into, something you have to do here shortly. And in that guidance, there are three different approaches to dealing with this bad issue. Really different, scenarios honestly. But wildlife acoustics has developed the smart system, which addresses all of this.

Walk us through how the smart system fits into this regulatory framework. 

Mona Doss: Yeah, sure. under that voluntary guidelines, there is. Is a scenario of blanket curtailment. one of the options. The second option is an algorithmic curtailment and [00:07:00] US fish and Wildlife has 10 words trying to describe what, algorithmic curtailment is.

But it’s basically looking at, historical acoustic data, bad activity on a wind farm, creating models to predict when turbines should be paused to minimize that mortality. And the third being, what we’re calling acoustically trigger curtailment. So basically, we have technology that is, constantly listening for bats.

Bats are vocalizing in the ultrasonic range beyond the range of human hearing. we’re the primary manufacturer of bat detectors worldwide. This is our specialty, and we’re listening for those bats so that as they’re approaching the wind farm, we can signal to the, wind turbine systems that the bat is present and they can then.

Pause or feather their blades to slowly pause operational turbines until we can then lower a flag and say, guess what? It’s been [00:08:00] 10 minutes, the bats are now gone. Kick up your gears and start all over again. 

Joel Saxum: That seems like a much better approach than a blanket curtailment, especially because, we’re looking in the United States at these a hundred, 120 turbine wind farms.

If you have to shut that whole wind farm down at one time as a blanket curtailment for a few hours a day or a few, like I would assume it’s at dusk or something of that sort. That’s a lot of revenue loss as well. So if you can shut down just portions of the wind farm where the bats have been detected, that’s a big change in operations.

that’s a big revenue change too. 

Mona Doss: It’s a big revenue change. In a case study, in a turbine in, England, we found that if you implemented a blanket cur talent regime, you were pausing operation when bats were even present. comparing a. Blanket curtailment approach to an acoustically triggered curtailment approach at that particular turbine.

we found that from an energy production [00:09:00] perspective, you had 10 times less pausing of the turbine with acoustically triggered curtailment as opposed to blanket curtailment. And that translates to dollar dollars and more energy production with a minimized, impact on bat mortality. 

Allen Hall: Okay, that’s interesting.

So you’re listening for the. Bat noise. Are you listening on every turbine or are you trying to echo locate bats? Like bats? Are echo locating themselves? Are you using basically a bat like system to detect bats? What, how does this work from a system standpoint? 

Mona Doss: it certainly could go on every turbine, but it doesn’t have to.

A lot of wind farms, especially the larger wind farms, are already configured in zone. So if you deploy these bat detectors at the turbines that are on the leading front of where a bat biologist thinks, the bats are typically gonna migrate through with the current topology on that site, then we would te detect with that [00:10:00] in those leading turbines and then communicating with the wind systems turbine systems, they can pause operation for those, for that zone until the bats have flown through.

We’re all in the clear, there’s no more bats. And then just start it. 

Allen Hall: So there’s a little bit of bat biology going on here to know where the bats are likely to be. Like, where are they sleeping when they exit, where are they likely headed to, and is it through the wind farm? And if so, then there’s a focused effort on that portion of the wind farm.

For a curtailment for certain turbines. Is that the thought process to the smart system? 

Mona Doss: You got it, Alan. 

Allen Hall: Wow. Okay. That is really interesting because I, a lot of systems that we have seen and we’ve talked to a, lot of, obviously, nature protection systems, birds, mostly the way they tend to work is that they.

Try to blanket the whole wind farm that they don’t really get into the flight patterns of [00:11:00] the birds too much. It is, Hey, are wind farms in a geographic area where there would be birds in your case bats. But th this is a totally different approach. It is a more focused approach to a. Really a complicated problem.

Mona Doss: It’s definitely a collaboration between the bat biologists that are familiar with the site and the bat species in the area, the wind farm operator in terms of trying to meet their economics and demands for wind energy as well as the local regulatories and what their requirements might be for bat protection in that region.

Allen Hall: Do the wind operators have a bat biologist on staff or on call to help with this, 

Mona Doss: some of the, larger operators? Ab, absolutely. Do they have bat biologists on staff? Others will, contract out to, many of the leading, environmental consultants that have whole teams of bat biologists that are familiar with bat behavior and bat flight patterns outta site.

Allen Hall: So wildlife acoustics works with the bat biologist. Doesn’t really [00:12:00] matter who, but you’re gonna be working with someone who knows the local terrain, the local back population, their flight patterns. Is there some research that needs to happen ahead of time? From the bat biologist standpoint before you start putting in a smart system to know all these details?

Mona Doss: Yeah, I would recommend the collection of bat call acoustic data in advance of any kind of system like we’re talking about, to go live primarily because you wanna reduce the false positives and false negatives. These turbines can do little ultrasonic squeaky systems, que squeaky sounds that, you don’t want us saying, Hey, there’s a bat, and really it’s just a squeak from the turbine.

So collect data in advance, fine tune all the alarms that needs to be done by a bat biologist. Familiar with bats at the site, 

Joel Saxum: but you guys as wildlife acoustics. Is that kit that you create as well? Do you have the electronics, if someone’s wants to consult to do these things, is that a service that you provide?

The, like that, pre-data collection? 

Mona Doss: So we are a [00:13:00] manufacturer primarily. we certainly want partners globally that have become more and more familiar with our, solution. but you don’t have to be a wildlife acoustics equipment expert, to implement a, smart curtailment implementation with acoustically triggered curtailment.

You simply have to, be a BA biologist, frankly. And then on the backside of things, be able to communicate with the operational staff at the wind farm so that they understand how the system would integrate. 

Joel Saxum: So that, that leads me to an important point here. I want, and I’m gonna put my, I’m a wind operator hat on, right?

So how does, what does life look like for me? So say this thing is implemented on my site. one of the big things that always pops up now is cybersecurity, right? So is it connected to the turbines or is it just connected back to the remote operation center and then they’re notified to shut things down?

Or is it automated? How does that all work? 

Mona Doss: Yeah, so we really just raise a flag. So a flag goes up saying we’ve detected a bat. It’s a bat that maybe meets certain bat calls, parameters that might [00:14:00] indicate a kind of species, because in Europe, again, all bats are protected. But in the United States, for instance, we’re only looking at particular certain species of bets at the moment with wind farms and it’s met a certain activity threshold.

So we’re simply raising the flag that criteria has been met. It’s still independently up to the wind farm systems to decide maybe waste on wind speed, temperature, time of year as to whether or not to actually implement the curtailment re regime. 

Joel Saxum: So I would say if I was an, if I was an operator, I’d have, I’d be in my, a road operation center and I’d have a matrix in front of me that says, today is September 21st.

or no, sorry. What’s the, just go with today, August 28th. Today is August 28th, and this is the wind speed. I’m getting an alert that this bat is here, at this time I don’t have to shut down, or I do, then I will command my turbines to feather out and, stop. Or not. and then when the, your system tells me, Hey, all clear for the [00:15:00] last X amount of time.

Cool. Boom. Spin ’em back up and we’re up and running again. so that being said, does this, the system has, its, does it has its own power and data communications or does that have to hook up somewhere on site? 

Mona Doss: Yeah, it really depends on the individual operator and what they want for that site. some operators will allow our systems to be behind their firewall and fully integrated.

Some operators don’t want that. and so it. On a different network, independent, but a way to still communicate with the turbine, systems as necessary. 

Allen Hall: And so obviously you’re gonna run into some pushback from wind turbine operators because anytime you wanna put a system onto the wind turbine, just like Joel was speaking to, it’s cybersecurity, how do I do this?

It’s, always too much, right? there’s, they have a lot on their plate, honestly, so they, tend not to want to do things, but. It is a smart decision. I think at some point the wind operators are going to do it. I think the issue at the moment is how do they get some [00:16:00] information and get started and learn about it.

So for advice, for those wind turbine operators that are still on the fence about implementing some sort of acoustic curtailment technology, what advice do you give them? 

Mona Doss: Absolutely. I would suggest to, contact well at acoustics if they’re specifically interested in acoustically sugar curtailment.

But certainly these wind farm operators had to have worked with bat biologists as part of their permitting process. So those, teens might be already familiar with the bats and the landscape. Talk with ’em about the various options that are out there to get ahead of the curve before regulatory changes occur.

Allen Hall: Joel, we’ve gotta get a bat biologist on because this sounds really fascinating. There’s a lot happening in the bat world. Usually we’re in the bird world, but in the bat world we haven’t had that much knowledge. This is great. if for Mona, for our listeners that wanted to, find out more about wildlife, acoustics and the smart system.

Where do they go? 

Mona Doss: wildlife acoustics.com. And we’ve got a, under our products, there is [00:17:00] a, page dedicated to smart. 

Allen Hall: And if they wanna find you, where do they find you? 

Mona Doss: Ah, I’m on LinkedIn, so reach out for me. Mona Doss with Wildlife Acoustics. And, my email, mona wildlife acoustics.com. 

Allen Hall: Moa, it has been great to have you on the podcast.

I learned a ton, I did a lot of research before we started this podcast. Very interesting area, and we need to stay in touch because as things progress with, the bats in the United States. And in Europe and around the world, we, want to stay abreast of what the latest technology is. So Mona, thank you so much for being on the podcast.

Mona Doss: Thank you, Alan. Thanks Joe. Appreciate the time.