The American Wind Wildlife Information Center (AWWIC) is a first-of-its kind initiative to expand the analysis of wind-wildlife data to provide actionable insights that benefit not only future wind energy operations, but also the future of wildlife conservation.
How to get involved:
Submit a proposal to use AWWIC data for your research: Contact info@rewi.org for more information.
Become a Data Contributor: Go here to learn more about the benefits of sharing your data with AWWIC.
About AWWIC
The Challenge: Improve Risk Analysis, Reduce Costs
Improved understanding of wind energy’s impacts on wildlife is a priority if we are to advance wind energy development while protecting wildlife and habitat.
For more than 20 years, wind energy companies have collected data to assess risk and impacts to wildlife from wind energy projects. Some of the data are publicly available, but other data remain confidential and are privately owned.
The Approach: Leverage Data Through Collaboration
The AWWIC database is the most comprehensive database of post-construction fatality monitoring data from U.S. wind projects. AWWIC expands the availability of wind-wildlife data for scientific analysis by working with industry collaborators to incorporate both publicly available and contributed data while maintaining confidentiality. The AWWIC database contains data from 235 projects and over 355 post-construction studies.
AWWIC:
- Collects and organizes existing data
- Improves risk assessment
- Increases cost-effectiveness of project siting studies
- Creates a model for data sharing & analysis conclusions
The Results: Reduced Uncertainty, More Efficient Permitting and Operational Strategies, and Improved Conservation
Credibility: Empirical data can lead to policy changes
Reduce Costs: Targeted data collection; Reduced monitoring where risks are low; Focused minimization and mitigation efforts
New Insights: Tools to learn from data in new ways
Analysis of AWWIC data is underway to identify regional variation in collision risk to birds and bats to inform project risk assessments. Upcoming reports can be used to:
- Guide recommendations on what species should be the focus of project siting studies
- Determine which habitat characteristics should be assessed to best predict impact for different regions of the U.S.
- Inform how much post-construction monitoring is needed to confirm impact predictions
AWWIC Results
Big Horn Wind Farm
Seasonal patterns of bird and bat collision fatalities at wind turbines
Information on when birds and bats die from collisions with wind turbines can help refine efforts to minimize fatalities via curtailment of energy productions and can offer insight into the risk factors associated with collision fatalities. Using data pooled from 114 post-construction monitoring studies conducted at wind facilities across the United States, we described seasonal patterns of fatalities among birds and bats.
Western Meadowlark by Kathy and Sam, Flickr, licensed under CC BY 2.0
Summary of Bird Fatality Monitoring Data Contained in AWWIC
This report summarizes bird fatality rate and fatality incident data contained in AWWIC from wind energy facilities in the U.S. and ensures the most up-to-date fatality data are available for generating hypotheses about bird collision risk at wind energy facilities.
Mexican Free-Tailed Bats Exiting Bracken Bat Cave By USFWS Headquarters, Flickr, licensed under CC BY 2.0
Summary of Bat Fatality Monitoring Data Contained in AWWIC
This report summarizes bat fatality rate and fatality incident data contained in AWWIC from wind energy facilities in the U.S. and ensures the most up-to-date fatality data are available for generating hypotheses about bat collision risk at wind energy facilities.