Draft National Wind Farm Development Guidelines - July 2010

An important objective of these investigations is to inform adaptive management of the
operational facility (see Evaluation of adaptive management aimed at further reduction
of impacts page 132). The program should also be designed to indicate whether preconstruction
processes were appropriate and predictions of impacts were valid.
These studies will often be reflected in conditions of approval for the wind farm and it is a
usual requirement that results of these studies are reported to relevant authorities. The
fundamental rationale for undertaking the studies and for reporting their results should
include the capacity they offer those agencies to:
• Evaluate impacts on populations.
• Improve guidance that can be given to the wind energy sector with the aim of
improving wind farm design, siting criteria and assessment processes, and to the
general community as information about key birds and bats improves.
• Function as central repositories of data which will permit them to oversee assessments
of cumulative impacts of multiple wind farm developments (see Section D.5).
While conditions of approval will be specific they should give consideration to these
underlying objectives. Conditions should also be established with clear and achievable
goals. Trial investigations may be necessary to ensure that investigations, such as carcass
searches, have a reasonable chance of attaining their objectives. If compliance to a
condition cannot be achieved or monitored, the condition itself should be reconsidered.
Compliance monitoring will often deal with operational information that is sensitive to the
wind farm operator and such sensitivity should be respected in the way the data are
collected, reported and used.
Bird and bat utilisation studies
Bird and bat utilisation surveys should be undertaken following construction and
commissioning of a wind farm. Their purpose is to assess whether use of the site by birds
and bats changes once turbines have been installed and are functioning. In order for preand
post-construction utilisation to be validly compared it is essential that methodology,
sampling design and sampling intensity used for the operating wind farm are directly
comparable with those undertaken in pre-construction studies.
Behavioural responses to wind turbines
Information about capacity for any Australian species of birds and bats to avoid collisions is
poor or non-existent and this knowledge cannot be obtained from counts of dead birds
and bats. If key species occur at a wind farm then targeted studies should be designed to
obtain data on the rates at which relevant species of birds and bats avoid collisions when
flying in the presence of turbines.
Documenting bird and bat fatalities
Investigation should be required to determine species and numbers of collision fatalities,
however determining how many birds or bats are killed is not an objective of itself. The
reason for doing so is to ascertain effects of any turbine collisions on the functioning and
maintenance of key species’ populations. To achieve that aim, the number of recorded
mortalities should be used to determine an estimate of overall mortality rate, by factoring
in search frequency and intensity, scavenging rates and search efficiency. This should
then be evaluated against results of population analyses undertaken as part of the
assessment process. Where quantifiable population data are not available from preconstruction
surveys population level impacts should be estimated in conjunction with the
relevant authorities.
In order for data about collisions to meaningfully inform assessment of effects on
populations it is essential that a monitoring program is designed on sound statistical
research principles. With these objectives in mind, the research design, including level of
monitoring effort will usually require approval by relevant authorities.
Draft National Wind Farm Development Guidelines – 2 July 2010 Page 131