The U.S. Department of Energy’s Wind Energy Technologies Office and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management have announced $1.6 million for a jointly funded project supporting the coexistence of offshore wind with bats on the West Coast. The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) will conduct bat acoustic monitoring at fixed and mobile sites along the West Coast. The goal is to better understand the environmental conditions likely to attract bat activity, with a focus on potential wind energy development areas. This is an additional project resulting from a funding opportunity for which selections were originally announced in October 2021.

This funding will help prepare the West Coast for floating offshore wind development by collecting bat distribution data and developing tools to monitor the environmental effects of floating offshore wind energy.