At the end of 2016 an independent Swedish company produced a report on the effectiveness of the Collision Avoidance Module , based on the experience of the first installation of the DTBird system in the Nordic country. This module emits warning sounds for birds at potential risk of collision, or discouraging sounds for birds to remain in the vicinity of moving blades, reducing their time in this zone or rotor crossings.
Signed by researchers Fredrik Litsgård, Alexander Eriksson, Tore Wizelius and Therese Säfström, the report analyzes the results of a pilot project which Ecocom and Vindform started in 2015. Their goal was to install and display the DTBird system, and then to evaluate their operation under the conditions in Sweden.
According to their report, the system works under Swedish conditions and is in line with test results that the manufacturer (Liquen) has previously published. The installation of DTBird does not offer 100% collision protection for avifauna, but results in a sharp risk reduction.
DTBird can also be used to perform bird surveys – especially in those cases where long time series of data are of importance – or in those cases where the location of wind farms is decided in advance.
The model installed in the wind farm near Lundsbrunn in southern Sweden was the DTBirdV4D4 of 2015, which was improved in 2016, when more efficient models specially designed for large terrestrial and marine wind turbines began to be commercialized.
