
Where bat conservation meets commercial success.
EchoSense® is a US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) approved and highly effective bat smart curtailment technology that provides an alternative to the high energy losses associated with blanket curtailment. The system limits bat fatalities at wind farms while simultaneously reducing curtailment hours and associated energy losses when compared to a blanket curtailment strategy.
How EchoSense works
EchoSense works by combining SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition), meteorological and acoustic data to curtail wind turbines only when bats are present.
40 - 60%
more energy than blanket curtailment
10+ years
of deployment experience
The benefits
-
An effective and approved alternative to blanket curtailment.
-
Returns 40 - 60% more energy than blanket curtailment without increased risk to bats.
-
Reacts to real time data, rather than trying to predict when bats may be present.
-
It reduces stakeholder objections and regulator/agency concerns by demonstrating a commitment to reducing bat mortality. This speeds up permitting.
-
It demonstrates environmental stewardship and a commitment to producing wind energy in harmony with bats.
-
It is a nature-based solution that allows operators to measure their project's impact on biodiversity.
-
Our dashboards provide real time data to support adaptive management of wind assets.
The results: EchoSense reduces bat fatalities and energy loss
The study results confirm that EchoSense will reduce bat fatalities while at the same time reducing energy loss, compared with blanket curtailment measures.

About EchoSense
In early 2018, we began working with our clients to find ways to progress projects that were stuck in development due to bat concerns. The question we asked ourselves was "What if you could reduce bat fatalities at your wind farm and increase energy yield at the same time?" It was important for us to find a way to reduce the impact of our clients' wind farms on bat populations and increase their energy production and revenue potential. We gathered a team of bat biologists, technology experts, and software engineers to tackle that very problem. A deep understanding of bat behaviour, wind farm operational controls and cybersecurity were essential to find a solution that presented projects with environmental and financial benefits.
EchoSense® was born.
Working with the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) following a proof-of-concept deployment in 2019 and supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the Renewable Energy Wildlife Institute (REWI), EchoSense worked with Alliant Energy to install and operate a full system from August to October 2020 at the English Farms wind farm in Iowa.
The DOE conducted a critical review our study design and our reports which ensured our clients got unbiased results on the EchoSense system. Access to NREL's GE 1.5MW wind turbine gave us the ability to test the impact on the system far beyond what we would normally be able to do in field deployments.
Kevin Denman, Managing Director, commented: "Working with Alliant Energy has been great. We were able to use their historic bat activity and wind data to forecast the environmental and financial benefits of EchoSense. Their confidence in EchoSense gave us the opportunity to gain the necessary endangered species research permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for the study under the DOE umbrella. We could not have asked for a better partner on this project."
The study results confirm that EchoSense will reduce bat fatalities while at the same time reducing the energy loss, compared with blanket curtailment measures.
"What we were trying to solve was a complex puzzle across multiple disciplines. Not only did we need to understand bat behavior but we were also interacting with wind farm operational controls. We had to design our EchoSense service to have no mechanical impact on the wind turbines and to maintain the highest level of cybersecurity that our clients expect."
Jim Adams, President
"What we were trying to solve was a complex puzzle across multiple disciplines. Not only did we need to understand bat behaviour but we were also interacting with wind farm operational controls. We had to design our EchoSense service to have no mechanical impact on the wind turbines and to maintain the highest level of cybersecurity that our clients expect."
Jim Adams, President of North America Operations,
Resources
Our clients





News