Spoor artificial intelligence helps rescue birds from wind turbines

Wind is the largest source of renewable energy in the United States, but wind farms pose a potential environmental problem because wind turbines can harm birds. Spoor is a startup that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to help wind farms mitigate that risk.

Spoor is software that uses machine learning to identify birds in videos, record their movements and predict their flight direction. Spoor co-founder and CEO Ask Helseth said government regulations in some countries require wind farms to monitor and track their impact on birds, especially in areas with endangered species. But before AI-powered computer vision technology, there was no effective way to do that.

Helseth says expectations from regulators are growing, but the industry lacks good tools. “Many people have to go into the field with binoculars and trained dogs to find out how many birds collide with wind turbines.”

Helseth says Spoor’s system of continuous monitoring of sites delivers big improvements. Existing wind farms can use data to better respond to bird migration patterns and can slow down or even stop wind turbines when bird activity is expected to increase. Companies can also use this technology to monitor potential sites for wind farms and assess their risk to local bird populations.

“Wind farms are very large, hundreds of square kilometers, and using computer vision to monitor the air is essentially an interesting technological challenge,” Helseth said. scalable technology for bird detection. This is a novel application of computer vision and our own data pipeline.”

The company, headquartered in Oslo, Norway, just raised a $4 million seed round from investors including Futurum Ventures, Nysnø and Superorganism, a venture capital firm focused on biodiversity. The round also includes Ørsted Ventures , the venture capital arm of Ørsted, one of the world’s largest offshore wind farm companies.

Helseth said they received interest from more than 100 investors for the seed round and were very strategic in choosing who they decided to partner with. Superorganism was the only company they proactively contacted. Kevin Webb, co-founder and chief executive officer at Superorganism, said the company had been following Spoor for some time and was excited about the investment because Spoor fits perfectly with Superorganism’s thesis of supporting companies helping the planet achieve net zero emissions without harming nature or biodiversity in the process.

“We’ve been following them from the beginning, and in the time we’ve known them, they’ve begun collaborating with the largest wind farm developers in the world. Ask and his team,” Webb told Techlade. recruited very well. Honestly, we’re very impressed with the progress they’ve made in building the team.”

The fact that Spoor started in Norway was helpful to the company’s growth because Norway has an advanced wind farm program. Europe has a higher adoption rate of wind energy than the US, Helseth added. But the company is aiming to expand into the US, which will be a turning point for itself.

The US government has an ambitious goal of achieving 30 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity by 2030, which is a huge opportunity for companies like Spoor. Any company wanting to build wind farms in the US must follow US Fish and Wildlife Service guidelines and ensure that their wind farms do not violate laws such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. endangered species or the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.