Vattenfall has tested a thermal camera system using artificial intelligence (AI) to monitor bird behaviour at its Hollandse Kust Zuid offshore wind farm in the Dutch North Sea.
The system, developed by Wildlife Imaging Systems (WIS), used 16 thermal cameras installed on one wind turbine. The technology is said to be able to detect small migratory birds and bats in darkness, as well as larger bird species during daylight hours. Researchers from Wageningen University & Research analysed the recordings to assess the system’s performance and identify areas for improvement.
The cameras operated around the clock, capturing bird movements during the day and at night, including in fog and rain, Vattenfall said on 20 October.
The nine-month trial covered two bird migration periods, spring and autumn, when millions of songbirds cross the North Sea, and recorded 22 possible collision events, two confirmed and one classified as probable.
The direct observations from Hollandse Kust Zuid provide additional data for assessing collision risks and investigating the conditions under which collisions occur. However, the results from a single turbine do not establish collision rates across the wind farm or the wider offshore wind industry, Vattenfall noted.
The company said the next step was to systematically apply the new technology used at Hollandse Kust Zuid to multiple turbines, wind farms and seasons in order to collect the scientific data needed to improve collision risk models for the offshore wind sector.
The study was conducted as part of Vattenfall’s voluntary programme BioWinS (Biodiversity Protection in Wind and Solar) for biodiversity protection, funded with an annual budget of EUR 300,000.
Back in 2023, Vattenfall reported the results of a two-year bird-monitoring study at its Aberdeen Bay Offshore Wind Farm in Scotland, where radar and camera technology tracked seabird movements around eleven turbines. More than 10,000 videos were collected, with no collisions or near-misses recorded. The study also found that more than 96 per cent of birds approaching within 10 metres of the area swept by turbine blades changed their flight paths to avoid a collision.
Later that year, Vattenfall partnered with Norwegian AI company Spoor and the British Trust for Ornithology on a follow-up project at the same site, using AI to track seabirds’ three-dimensional flight paths near turbine blades and investigate the potential for detecting collisions. The British Trust for Ornithology was commissioned to independently validate the technology.
Hollandse Kust Zuid is a 1.5 GW subsidy-free offshore wind farm located 18-36 kilometres off the Dutch coast between the towns of Scheveningen and Zandvoort. The wind farm, commissioned in 2024, comprises 139 Siemens Gamesa SG 11.0-200 DD turbines.