Fatal bird and bat collisions with rapidly spinning wind turbine blades in South Africa occur more frequently than previously thought and are one of the most significant ecological obstacles linked to wind energy production.

Birdlife South Africa has reported that birds from at least 200 species have had fatal collisions with wind turbines in South Africa and that almost every wind farm in the country has recorded fatalities of threatened and priority species.

However, there are solutions in the works. One is a bird fatality mitigation pilot project that involves painting and patterning turbine blades to improve their visibility and reduce collisions. The South African Wind Energy Association (Sawea) and BirdLife South Africa have encouraged wind farms to test this strategy.

The Umoya Energy Wind Farm, 125km north of Cape Town, is piloting this project.

Dr Rob Simmons, the CEO and co-founder of Birds & Bats Unlimited, said 10 turbines should be painted with a "signal red" colour and 10 turbines should be used as controls (remaining unpainted).

The blade-patterning project was inspired by a similar project at the Smøla wind-power plant in Norway, which "showed a significant reduction in annual [bird] fatality rates".

In this experiment, one of the three blades on a wind turbine was painted black, resulting in 70% fewer fatalities at the four turbines with painted blades than at the neighbouring (unpainted) control turbines.

Bird fatalities from wind turbine collisions...