First Look at a New Generalized Fatality Estimator, GenEst

Mass. Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs

Thursday, August 23, 2018

This webinar was hosted by the National Wind Coordinating Collaborative (NWCC).

researcher conducts fieldwork at wind energy facility

AnchorThe NWCC and WREN (Working Together to Resolve Environmental Effects of Wind Energy) held a webinar on a new generalized fatality estimator (GenEst).

  • Presenter: Manuela Huso, U.S. Geological Survey

Fatality estimates are a fundamental tool for evaluating the impacts of wind turbines on wildlife and identifying solutions to minimize those impacts. In the past, numerous statistical approaches have been developed to calculate project-wide fatality estimates from raw data from turbine surveys to provide project-wide fatality estimates. The Generalized Estimator (GenEst) is developed by statisticians who created several of the current approaches, and incorporates concepts from these prior efforts to apply the most relevant and unbiased statistical adjustments based on the user’s data and how they were collected. The goal of GenEst is to improve the accuracy of fatality estimates at wind facilities with a free, user-friendly software tool.

This NWCC/WREN webinar provided a first look at GenEst and how it can be used to estimate fatalities at wind facilities.

The National Wind Coordinating Collaborative (NWCC), formed in 1994 and retired in 2020, was initiated and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL); AWWI facilitated the NWCC from 2012 until 2020. Learn more.