Protecting birdlife through smarter wind farm management

Wind energy has an important role to play in South Africa’s transition to a lower-carbon energy system. But for long-term infrastructure investors, sustainability requires more than measuring the renewable electricity generated or the carbon emissions avoided. It also requires understanding how an asset interacts with the environment around it and using that knowledge to improve the way the asset is managed over time.

Umoya Energy Wind Farm near Hopefield in the Western Cape provides a strong example of this approach in practice.

Umoya was the first utility-scale wind farm in South Africa to achieve commercial operation. The 67 MW facility comprises 37 turbines and produces approximately 176,600 MWh of renewable electricity each year, enough to supply around 49,000 low-income or 22,000 medium-income homes. Its annual generation avoids an estimated 183,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide compared with equivalent coal-fired generation, roughly the same climate benefit as taking 38,724 petrol-powered cars off the road every year. AIIM-managed funds invested in the project from an early stage and oversaw the establishment of environmental, social and governance structures aligned with the Equator Principles and IFC Performance Standards.

The sustainability story extends beyond energy generation. Umoya’s broader landholding covers approximately 2,400 hectares, roughly half of which has been designated as a conservation area managed by SANParks and intended to form part of the West Coast National Park.

This combination of clean energy generation and ecosystem stewardship reflects a wider principle that increasingly shapes responsible infrastructure investment.

Climate change and biodiversity loss are interconnected sustainability challenges and addressing one should not come at the expense of how the other is managed.

Wind energy’s interaction with birdlife is highly specific to individual sites and species. Factors such as topography, wetlands, breeding areas, feeding grounds and flight paths can influence how birds use the airspace around a wind farm. Southern African best-practice guidance therefore places strong emphasis on identifying priority species, sensitive habitats and potential no-go areas early enough to influence project design and turbine micro-siting.

Importantly, that assessment does not end once a project becomes operational. BirdLife South Africa’s guidance recommends a staged process spanning scoping, pre-construction assessment, construction and post-construction monitoring. Operational monitoring provides the evidence needed to compare actual outcomes with assumptions made during development and refine mitigation where necessary.

This ability to learn and adapt over an asset’s life is particularly important for infrastructure designed to operate for decades. Bird populations can change, conservation status can be revised and new mitigation technologies can emerge. Operational monitoring is therefore an important component of adaptive management, allowing investors and operators to respond to new information rather than relying solely on conditions observed when a project was first developed.

At Umoya, monitoring has supported an innovative approach to reducing bird collision risk.

In 2023, four turbines were selected for a pioneering blade-patterning trial. Two broad signal-red stripes were painted onto a single blade of each turbine to increase its visibility to birds. The concept is based on research suggesting that increasing contrast on a rotating blade can reduce the visual effect known as motion smear, making the turbine easier for approaching birds to detect. The red pattern was developed within South African Civil Aviation Authority requirements following consultation with relevant specialists and industry stakeholders.

The project has since generated valuable evidence for the wider renewable energy industry. A May 2026 research analysing 32 months of monitoring after the intervention reported a median 83% reduction in bird fatalities at the four patterned turbines relative to control turbines. During the monitoring period, two fatalities were recorded at the patterned turbines compared with 23 across the control turbines used in the study. The researchers found strong statistical support for the reduction while also recognising the relatively small number of treated turbines and the resulting uncertainty around the precise size of the effect. Further trials across different sites, species and turbine configurations will therefore be important.

Innovation in biodiversity management is rarely about finding a single universal solution. It is about building an evidence base and combining the right interventions for the conditions at each asset.

Blade patterning can sit alongside careful site selection, turbine micro-siting, management of attractants, bird-friendly powerline infrastructure and shutdown-on-demand systems. The latter temporarily stop individual turbines when priority birds approach areas of elevated collision risk and can be managed by trained observers or increasingly through automated detection technologies. BirdLife South Africa describes responsive shutdown as an increasingly important mitigation option because it allows turbines to operate normally while intervention is concentrated on periods when actual risk is detected.

For us, this reflects the role of active ownership in sustainable infrastructure. AIIM integrates environmental and social considerations into its investment and ownership processes, including biodiversity and the responsible stewardship of the ecosystems in which its assets operate.

Umoya demonstrates what that can look like on the ground. Long-term monitoring identifies where attention is required. Specialist knowledge informs the response. Operational data tests whether an intervention is working and the findings contribute to a growing body of knowledge that can improve future projects.

As renewable energy deployment accelerates, this capacity to learn will become increasingly valuable. Sustainable infrastructure is strongest when climate objectives, biodiversity considerations and investment discipline reinforce one another. The experience at Umoya shows how thoughtful asset management and practical innovation can help renewable energy and birdlife share the same landscape more responsibly.