Avian interactions with renewable energy infrastructure: An update

ABSTRACT Energy infrastructure is widespread worldwide. Renewable energy technologies, which are expanding their footprint on the landscape and their contribution to energy availability, represent a different kind of infrastructure from extractive energy technologies. Although renewable energy sources may offer a ‘greener alternative' to traditional extractive energy sources, mounting evidence suggests that renewable energy infrastructure, and the transmission lines needed to convey energy from renewable energy facilities to users, may impact birds. Peer-reviewed literature historically has focused on the direct effects of electrocution and, to a lesser extent, collisions with overhead power systems, and on avian collisions at wind energy facilities, with less consideration of indirect effects or other energy sectors. Here, we review studies that have examined direct and indirect effects on birds at utility-scale onshore wind- and solar-energy facilities, including their associated transmission lines. Alt...