18 Aug

Electric towers are a risk for storks that want to make their nest or stop there because especially when they land or take off they can touch the wiring with the tips of their wings and die of electrocution, while cause supply incidents in the network. Endesa has now promoted a unique prototype throughout Catalonia that has been placed on ten electric towers in Torregrossa and Ivars d'Urgell, in the Pla d'Urgell, to prevent storks from stopping or nesting in the electric towers. It is a geometric structure made of fiberglass and mineral-loaded resins, designed and developed in Lleida, which covers the top of the tower. The designed structure weighs little and, even, its shape and volume have been calculated based on the action of the wind, so that the effort that the metal structure has to make can withstand it perfectly.

Endesa assures that this action at Pla d'Urgell is not, by any means, the first to be carried out in the Ponent regions. For years, the company has been adapting towers and installing devices on various medium voltage lines to preserve protected and threatened bird species. The prototype therefore wants to join the fight to avoid electrocutions with other devices of different types that already exist.

In this sense, the company defends that its aim is not to banish the storks from Catalonia but quite the opposite, to invite them to stay, and for this reason, remembers that they have even attached metal elements to some towers, called birdhouses, precisely to "invite" the storks to nest there, and they claim that good results have been obtained.

The actions are framed with the agreement that the company has signed with the Generalitat in matters of avifauna with the common objective of mitigating the risks of electrocution and collision of birds in the electrical network, especially of those species listed as threatened. In Segrià alone, since 2017, Endesa has adapted more than 350 supports to make them safer to protect avifauna in general and storks in particular. These actions have involved an investment of more than 630,000 euros.