High voltage birdspotting: Elia uses drones for collision prevention
Elia is using drones to install bird diverters on high-voltage lines between Harmignies-Ville-sur-Haine and Harmignies-Ciply. 600 drones have been installed, a first in Belgium from the country’s TSO.
Drones have previously been used for visual inspections and audits of the lines and amendments to European regulations made the initiative possible.
Manual installation of diverters is time consuming and not free from risks, requiring strict safety measures to protect workers. As such, according to the TSO, the use of drones has numerous advantages; installing diverters with drones is not only faster, it is less risky for workers.
Elia’s firefly bird diverters
Firefly-type diverters are small rectangular plates of 11 by 15cm, which reflect light thanks to two reflectors, one on each side. This allows birds to better notice the lines and adjust their trajectory.
Analyses by Natuurpunt of other lines, on which diverters were already placed using a trolley instead of drones, showed that the diverters prevented 95% of collisions.
Elia has been working alongside Natagora in Wallonia and Natuurpunt in Flanders to limit the impact of its infrastructure on the environment and in particular on birds.
Jean-Yves Paquet, Aves, Natagora birds working group, stated on the project: “With the installation of 600 diverters on a 4.6 km section, Elia is following the recommendations of the experts and the Group can avoid most bird collisions with the connection. Natagora (Wallonia) and Natuurpunt (Flanders) are providing their expertise so that Elia can meet its target of 20km of extra lines fitted with diverters per year.”
According to the TSO, as bird experts have mapped out the collision risk for the Belgian high voltage grid, Elia knows which lines pose the greatest risk to birds.
Prior to the installation, 79.74km of high-voltage lines on the territory had diverters. Elia has set itself the interim target of installing 200km of lines with diverters by 2030 – or an extra 20km per year.
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Bird diverter installation
The drone pilot stands under the line to apply the diverters. The drone is equipped with five diverters, flies into the air and attaches the diverters 10m apart from each other on the line. Once the five diverters are installed, the drone lands so that it can pick up new diverters and continue the installation.
In this way, more than a hundred diverters can be installed per day.
Electromagnetic fields produced by the high-voltage lines have little impact on the drone, which is equipped with tools to perform various operations. During the installation, a technician integrates the GPS data of each of the diverters on the section.
The bird diverters are installed as part of the works to bring the electricity zone to a voltage level of 150kV.
The transition to this voltage level is hoped to contribute to the security of supply of the province of Hainaut as renewables continue to be integrated onto the grid.
