In December 2008, Terna signed an agreement with LIPU - Lega Italiana Protezione Uccelli, Italian partner of BirdLife International with the aim of investigating the interaction between the high voltage power lines and birdlife to verify the real impact the National Transmission Grid (NTG) might have on sedentary or migratory birds and also to investigate possible mitigation actions.

 

Seven test areas were identified throughout the country’s territory. Each of these is affected by the presence of  electricity lines and by the migration, stop over or breeding of the birds. More precisely these areas, classified as  ZPS – Zones of Special  Protection and  IBA - Important Bird Areas, are:

• the Parco Nazionale del Gran Paradiso;
• the Parco Nazionale dello Stelvio;
• the Carso Triestino;
• the Valli di Comacchio;
• the Monti della Tolfa;
• the Strait of Messina;
• the Natural Reserve of the Lake of Montepulciano, directly managed by LIPU.

After the monitoring,  which lasted 16 months, the study demonstrated low collision values in four of the seven areas studied: Parco Nazionale del Gran Paradiso, Carso Triestino, Monti della Tolfa and Parco Nazionale dello Stelvio. In these last two areas, in particular,  there were no findings during the monthly surveys conducted that year.

Low levels of collision were registered in the Strait of Messina area, where a concentration of thousands of migratory birds can be found: this fact, together with the environmental (thick vegetation) and meteorological conditions (fog and wind) detected, calls for the adoption of a more specific experimental protocol.


As for the areas of Mezzano and Lake Montepulciano, humid and characterized by an intense bird passage, data demonstrated the existence of a collision risk (estimated respectively at 1.1 and 3.4 collided birds per kilometer of lines/year). Terna’s commitment is to carry out an in-depth study of the phenomenon to access the real extent of the risk.


Consistent with the “Guidelines for the mitigation of the impact of the electricity lines on birdlife” defined by the Ministry of Environment, the study conducted by Terna and LIPU, presented at Budapest in April 2011 during the meeting organized by Birdlife International “Power Lines and Bird Mortality in Europe”, intends to provide a valid contribution to identify suitable measures to mitigate the real impact of the high voltage electricity lines on birdlife.