DWM is a data collection application specifically for collecting Downed Wildlife Monitoring records for power generation facilities such as wind farms and solar plants, though it can handle typical downed wildlife monitoring tasks around fixed structures at other types of facilities as well.

These records are often needed for regulatory compliance and mandatory reporting to state and federal agencies. The DWM application guides project managers in the scheduling, collection and final reporting of these records.

See the following executive summary for how the DWM app can greatly improve the quality of your business's downed wildlife monitoring:
Continue reading for a description of how it works at the user level.

Many renewable energy facilities are currently performing downed wildlife monitoring using home grown solutions involving paper records, spreadsheets, personal grade databases, handheld GPS units, and digital cameras . These records tend to be stored onsite, in one location, where it is susceptible to being destroyed by fire or other natural disasters.

Our DWM product organizes this disparate data into a simplified central system where all records are collected by an app running on a tablet. These records are then automatically uploaded to a secure reliable durable cloud storage. The records are spread across geographically distinct data centers so even if one or two data centers were to be catastrophically destroyed, your critical data will still be safe.

Usage Overview

A site or group of sites is assigned to a cloud server. Each server has its own database. Users are created within the server and are assigned different roles. The admin user is responsible for creating other user accounts, creating site(s) on the server, creating structures (such as wind turbines, meteorological towers, heliostats, etc.) within those site(s), and assigning lists of covariates like species, ground cover types, and other configurable items to each site.

Each site should have one or more Fatality Search Managers, Searcher Efficiency (SEEF) Proctors, Carcass Persistence Trial (CPT or CARE) Proctors, and technicians to perform searches and conduct CP Trial observations. There are other roles for reporting and some role divisions within these groups for security. The main roles have the following responsibilities:

  • Fatality Search Manager- sets up the schedule for which turbines will be searched in a site. Uses a calendar to assign searches to technicians. Reviews technician search results and can make edits as needed.
  • SEEF Proctor- generates random SEEF trials and enters those trials into the system on search days where a Fatality Search Manager has assigned searches. This person may or may not be the same person as the Fatality Search Manager.
  • CPT Proctor- generates carcass persistence (aka carcass retention) trials and enters those trials into the system.

  • Technicians- can be assigned a variety of roles allowing them to perform fatality searches (while unknowingly searching for SEEF trials), place and observe ongoing CP Trials, place SEEF trials for other technicians and recover missed SEEF trials for other technicians or themselves.

  • Reporters - can run Fatality Search and Fatality Found reports, SEEF reports, and CPT reports. Which reports can be run depends on which roles are assigned.

User Interfaces

The system has two types of interfaces.

  1. A web interface from a computer browser which points at the facility's cloud server. This is used by the administrator, Fatality Search Manager, SEEF Proctor, and CPT Proctor to enter their records.

  2. A mobile application for offline jobs.  The technicians (or users assigned to a role which requires being out in the field) will use a mobile device to collect their records.  These mobile devices run an application designed to look and feel just like the web interface except it can go into offline mode. The offline mode has all information pre-downloaded that the user will need to do their job for the day.  Many facilities are outside the range of reliable internet service, so this offline mode allows the user to do their job without internet access in the field.  When the user returns to internet access, they set the device to online mode and the records collected will be uploaded to the cloud server.