Name
Felicity Williams
Job title
Senior Zoologist - Bat Ecology
Organisation
Biosis
Speaker biography
Felicity began working with microbats in 2008 during her Honours thesis. In 2010, she joined Biosis as an environmental consultant, where her skills in microbat survey and assessment became invaluable for wind project assessments in Victoria. Since then, Felicity has worked as an ecologist across Western Australia, Northern Territory, New South Wales, and Tasmania. Now based in Hobart, Felicity leads the use of innovative technologies to address knowledge gaps on microbat risk and improve microbat impact assessment for wind developments. Felicity’s objective is delivering cost-effective microbat impact assessment and mitigation solutions that support Australia’s renewables transition while safeguarding biodiversity.
Speaking At
AWIF Presentation title
Innovating Bat Monitoring: Thermal Imaging and AI for Smarter Collision Risk Assessments
AWIF Presentation summary
Microbats present unique challenges for wind energy development in Australia. Understanding their movement around turbines is critical to predicting species-specific collision risk. Yet current monitoring methods using ultrasonic detectors are limited by technical and biological constraints. These limitations make it difficult to assess microbat collision risk, often leading regulators to adopt conservative mitigation measures such as blanket curtailment, which can unnecessarily reduce energy output. Our work introduces an innovative, data-driven alternative to Australia. In an Australia first pilot project, Biosis partnered with US tech company Wildlife Imaging Systems to combine ultrasonic recorders with stereo-thermal cameras and apply machine learning algorithms to analyse bat activity at a meteorological mast. This approach generates high-resolution, site-specific data on bat activity, flight heights, movement patterns, and responses to environmental variables such as wind speed and temperature. By integrating acoustic and thermal technologies, we can identify high-risk conditions with far greater accuracy than traditional methods alone. The outcome is a cost-effective solution that informs pre-construction collision risk assessments and establishes targeted curtailment regimes that can be tested for effectiveness and further refined during operation and post-construction monitoring. Data-driven curtailment regimes maximize power generation while minimizing impacts to bats, supporting both biodiversity conservation and Australia’s transition to net zero. Our project demonstrates that technological innovation can bridge long-standing knowledge gaps and deliver practical, science-based solutions for the wind industry.
