New technology will map bird deaths on wind farms

Artificial intelligence is mapping bird life on massive offshore wind farms. The goal is to prevent the death of birds. Young Spoor got both climate fund Nysnø and energy giant Ørsted on the team.

a path is a young Norwegian company with technology that can effectively map bird life in and around wind turbines. In the past, this was not possible. Danish Ørsted, the world’s largest wind energy company, has become involved with the company.

Now, the three founders of Spoor have raised NOK 24 million from several different investors, for further development and growth.

– It all started when we interviewed actors planning offshore wind farms. They lack data and knowledge about birds on wind farms, and they lack effective monitoring of bird life, Lauria Coronado Garcia told Aftenbdeldet. She is one of the three founders.

The company has developed a unique technology that uses cameras and artificial intelligence to detect birds from a distance. The system is able to recognize the type of bird that is approaching.

Mapping is important

Ørsted says in a press release that the company wants to promote increased biodiversity across all of its projects, so monitoring bird life on wind farms is an important tool.

It was difficult to observe the behavior of the birds. Therefore, the wind energy industry today uses precautionary principles to prevent bird collisions in gardens.

According to Ørsted, recent studies indicate that bird collisions with wind turbines are much lower than previously expected.

“Spoor’s system will be able to strengthen this theory and establish concrete statistical evidence in the field,” Oersted wrote.

nine million

The Nysnø Climate Investment Fund has entered Spoor with an amount of NOK 9 million. Thus, Nysnø has invested in 16 different companies. In addition, there are investments in several funds.

It is very good that there are new Norwegian technology companies that will promote the restructuring. Spoor is a young, forward-thinking, exciting company with a good and very important product, Nysnø investment analyst Guro Skjæveland tells Aftenbladet.

Next to Nysnø, Wiski Capital joins the owner side in Spoor. Wiski Capital is the investment firm of technology founder Øystein R. Skiri and Salmar heir Gustav Magnar Witzøe.

The three founders of Spoor, who along with Coronado-Garcia are Helge Reikerås and
Ask Helseth, as the largest of the owners even after the capital increase.

happy for Ørsted

– We are very pleased that Ørsted, the largest offshore wind company in the world, is also with us. They are investing 2 million kroner, but the most important thing for us is the partnership and the great opportunities this opens up in the future, says Coronado-Garcia.

Spoor’s technology will be able to speed up the construction of wind farms at sea and on land, where mapping of bird life can be done faster and more accurately than before.

We have many individual pilot projects. These days we’re in the process of getting an agreement to install our system on a larger offshore wind farm, Ask Helseth says.

Spoor is headquartered in Oslo and currently has 10 employees from almost many countries.

We will grow and hopefully double the number of employees next year.