Ivanpah solar electric generating system killing birds

Are solar power plants killing birds?

A rare and unusual type of solar power plant that concentrates sunlight in California is accidentally killing up to 6,000 birds every year, with staff reporting that the birds keep flying into its concentrated beams of sunlight, and spontaneously bursting into flames.

What is the Ivanpah solar thermal power plant?

Now, stop imagining, because the rest is not very pretty. What our bird has unwittingly stumbled upon is the Ivanpah solar thermal power plant, a circular array of over 300,000 mirrors aligned in such a way as to deliver a concentrated solar beam onto a central water tower.

How many birds does a solar plant kill a year?

This Mojave Desert solar plant kills 6,000 birds a year. Here's why that won't change any time soon - Los Angeles Times This Mojave Desert solar plant kills 6,000 birds a year. Here’s why that won’t change any time soon

What happened at the Ivanpah power plant?

This is the series of events that researchers at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service witnessed last fall at the 377-megawatt Ivanpah power plant and which they describe in an avian mortality report released last month by the California Energy Commission. ( KCET, a public television station in California obtained a copy of the report months earlier.)

How many avian deaths are caused by solar energy?

Another study attributed 365 million to 988 million avian deaths to collisions with buildings and windows. Experts said that most solar energy generated in the U.S. comes from photovoltaic panels, not concentrated solar power towers like the one at the Ivanpah plant that created the conditions that fatally harmed these birds.

How hot does the Ivanpah solar array get?

BrightSource Energy Inc., the company that runs the Ivanpah plant (with help from Google and NRG Energy, Inc.), has not disclosed just how hot their solar flux gets. The USFWS took one measurement at a mirror on the outer right of the array and recorded a temperature of 93° C. The report estimates that the focal area at the tower reaches 500° C.