Western EcoSystems Technology, Inc., Cheyenne, Wyoming, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2020 Apr 24;15(4):e0232034. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0232034. eCollection 2020.
Recent trends in renewable energy development in the United States (U.S.) show that new installed capacity of utility-scale solar energy has exceeded 30% of total installed capacity of all sources per year since 2013. Photovoltaic solar energy provides benefits in that no emissions are produced; however, there are potential impacts from photovoltaic solar development on birds that include habitat loss and potential for collision mortality. Only 2 papers in the peer-reviewed literature present fatality information from fatality monitoring studies at a photovoltaic utility-scale solar energy facility; however, more data exists in unpublished reports. To provide a more comprehensive overview of bird mortality patterns, we synthesized results from fatality monitoring studies at 10 photovoltaic solar facilities across 13 site-years in California and Nevada. We found variability in the distribution of avian orders and species among and within Bird Conservation Regions, and found that water-obligate birds, which rely on water for take-off and landing, occurred at 90% (9/10) of site-years in the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts Bird Conservation Region. We found that a cause of mortality could not be determined for approximately 61% of intact carcasses, and that approximately 54% of all carcasses were feather spots, introducing uncertainty into the interpretation of the fatality estimates. The average annual fatality estimate we calculated for photovoltaic solar (high-end estimate of 2.49 birds per megawatt per year) is lower than that reported by another study (9.9 birds per megawatt per year) that included one photovoltaic facility. Our results provide a summary of fatalities in bird conservation regions where the facilities are located, but expanding our conclusions to new regions is limited by the location of facilities with fatality monitoring data.
近年来，美国可再生能源的发展趋势表明，自 2013 年以来，公用规模太阳能的新增装机容量已超过所有能源总装机容量的 30%。光伏太阳能具有无排放的优势；然而，光伏太阳能开发对鸟类也存在潜在影响，包括栖息地丧失和碰撞致死的可能性。仅有 2 篇同行评议文献中的论文提供了在公用规模光伏太阳能设施进行的死亡率监测研究中的死亡率信息；然而，更多的数据存在于未发表的报告中。为了更全面地了解鸟类死亡模式，我们综合了加利福尼亚州和内华达州 10 个光伏太阳能设施在 13 个监测年份中的死亡率监测研究结果。我们发现，在鸟类保护区域内和之间，鸟类目和物种的分布存在差异，并且依赖于起飞和着陆的水域鸟类在索诺兰沙漠和莫哈韦沙漠鸟类保护区域的 90%（9/10）的监测年份中都有出现。我们发现，大约 61%的完整尸体无法确定死因，并且大约 54%的所有尸体都是羽毛斑点，这给死亡率估计的解释带来了不确定性。我们计算的光伏太阳能的年平均死亡率估计值（高端估计值为每年每兆瓦 2.49 只鸟类）低于另一项研究报告的死亡率估计值（每年每兆瓦 9.9 只鸟类），该研究包括一个光伏设施。我们的研究结果提供了在设施所在的鸟类保护区域内的鸟类死亡情况的总结，但将我们的结论扩展到新的区域受到具有死亡率监测数据的设施位置的限制。
