A flock of barnacle geese flying past a wind farm in northern Germany. As more turbines are built, the sector's impact on biodiversity could rise. Source: gerdtromm/RooM via Getty Images.

As the European Union squares up to its 2050 net-zero goal, the deployment of renewables will increase the strain on ecosystems on land and offshore, and force policymakers and industry to reckon with the balance between clean energy and biodiversity preservation.

Given its sprawling infrastructure, the utilities sector is more exposed to areas with biodiversity risks globally than any other, data from S&P Global Sustainable1 shows.

Onshore wind in particular is grappling with its impact, including on birds and bats. How risky each project is depends on the local ecosystem, but nature preservation interests often clash with clean power development.

Many proposed wind projects are being challenged, often by stakeholders citing biodiversity problems, said Christoph Zipf, a spokesperson for wind lobby group WindEurope.

Biodiversity has been the top cause of legal challenges against onshore wind in Germany, the EU's largest wind market, according to 2019 data from research group Fachagentur Windenergie an Land.

"Biodiversity is a strong sword, a known way to challenge projects," Zipf said, adding that legislation on biodiversity protection is not always clear in each EU country.

EU regulators have sought to reduce the burden of compliance on developers in recent years.

In 2022 emergency legislation, the European Commission introduced a presumption that renewables development is of overriding public interest when assessing possible environmental conflicts.

The revised Renewable Energy Directive, approved Sept. 12 by the European Parliament, also eased spatial planning procedures for project developers. The directive requires member states to find so-called renewables acceleration areas where the impact of the deployment of renewables is expected to be lower, and where projects can be implemented quickly.

"Renewables deployment can co-exist with biodiversity and in many cases help to improve it," an EU official told S&P Global Commodity Insights, for instance if fish stocks can recover in the area or it can be combined with sustainable aquaculture.

"Fighting climate change is key to prevent further losses in biodiversity. They are two sides of the same coin," the official said.

Population-based approach to biodiversity

Areas of high biodiversity value in the EU are known as Natura 2000 zones, which cover 18% of the bloc's land and 8% of its marine area. While not all commercial activity is prohibited, member states are required to manage the land sustainably.

When it comes to aligning onshore wind with biodiversity preservation, "there are three priorities: siting, siting, siting," said Jan Blew, project manager for onshore wind energy at surveyor BioConsult, based in Schleswig-Holstein, northern Germany.

Projects should not be pursued in the migration routes or flight corridors of birds or bats, Blew said. One example of the problem is Spain's Tarifa region where wind farms have killed thousands of birds, including the rare griffon vulture.

Germany has pledged to dedicate 2% of its land for onshore wind development, and a 2022 study by research groups Fraunhofer Institut and Bosch & Partners showed that this is achievable, taking into account distancing requirements and nature protection zones. Two percent of Germany's land can accommodate up to 35,000 turbines.

Siting considerations need to home in on areas with high wind speeds, reducing the number of turbines that are required to meet renewables targets, noted Boris Stemmer, a professor of nature planning at the University of Ostwestfalen-Lippe in Germany, who has studied onshore wind farm planning.

"Even in areas that are of high value when it comes to nature protection, this can be worthwhile," Stemmer said.

A change in regulation is making such plans more feasible. Rather than focusing on individual animals, for example a pair of birds nesting near a planned wind farm, the EU Renewable Energy Directive enshrined a population-based approach to biodiversity, where the health of a list of endangered species is being monitored more broadly across the region.

Blew said this is a paradigm shift but "from a surveyor's perspective, not bad," noting that unmitigated climate change hurts biodiversity. "It's a twin crisis," Blew said.

Mitigation is possible

The wind industry is following two strands of policy when it comes to biodiversity protection, according to Zipf: mitigation, where an impact on biodiversity is reduced or redressed, and restoration, where a net benefit for biodiversity is achieved.

To reduce their impact, Blew said, wind developers can pay landowners to dedicate distraction areas — areas of greenery designed to attract animals away from turbines — or the turbines can be shut off if there is a risk of collisions.

In the Tarifa region, wind farm operators introduced a selective shutdown protocol after the bird deaths. A team of researchers from the Estacion Biologica de Doñana and Oregon State University found the measure protected animals with limited effects on power output.

"Our finding of griffon vulture mortality being reduced by over 92% through turbine shutdowns was associated with only an estimated loss of less than 0.51% in energy production," they wrote in a 2022 paper.

Turbines can also be hoisted onto higher towers to increase the amount of area free for flight below the blades, while some developers have experimented with painting blades black to increase visibility for birds.

Projects that need or want to offset their impact can pay for compensation areas, dedicated zones cultivated to enhance biodiversity.

Offshore wind impact

Strain on ecosystems will also rise due to the offshore wind buildout. The EU is targeting 300 GW of offshore wind capacity by 2050, mostly in the North Sea.

In addition to the potential for striking birds, offshore wind farms can cause underwater noise and seafloor disturbance during construction, and maintenance work creates more boat traffic in the area.

In countries like Germany or the Netherlands, the government pre-selects sites for development, meaning the risk of projects being struck down due to biodiversity concerns is low. In Sweden, which is an open-entry market for offshore wind, Vattenfall AB was recently denied a permit for its Stora Middelgrund project, with the government citing the protection of sensitive ecosystems.

"This rollout of offshore wind farms is happening in a system that is already very degraded by years of human use and pressure factors," said Ewout van Galen, head of projects at the Dutch North Sea Foundation, an organization advocating for sustainable economic activities in the North Sea.

Other disruptors to biodiversity are fishing, the oil and gas industry and underground carbon storage, van Galen said.

The Netherlands is planning 21.5 GW of offshore wind by 2030, 38 GW by 2040 and 70 GW by 2050.

There will be enough ecological space for the Dutch to meet their 2030 goal, van Galen said, but for the longer-term targets it is more uncertain. "It is very difficult to measure cumulative effects on ecology," van Galen said.

Biodiversity measures available offshore

The Netherlands has introduced biodiversity measures into the auction design for offshore wind farms, and van Galen sees opportunities for such projects to improve biodiversity.

Wind developer Ørsted A/S installed artificial reefs near the Borssele 1 & 2 wind farm in the Netherlands, and subsequently documented the return of cod in the area.

Other projects focus on data collection. At the Aberdeen Bay offshore wind farm in Scotland, Vattenfall is trialing an artificial intelligence tool that tracks birds' flight patterns and behavior and can potentially detect collisions of seabirds with turbines.

"Having well-understood, high quality data is key to providing the evidence base we need to protect seabirds and plan the offshore wind farms of the future which are vital in the fight against climate change," said Jesper Kyed Larsen, bioscience expert at Vattenfall.

In Denmark's North Sea, Ørsted is collaborating with wildlife organization WWF on a restoration project to repopulate depleted reef-building species such as native oysters and horse mussels. Biogenic reefs made by these species can provide a habitat for many other species.

The developer has pledged that, from 2030, all new projects commissioned must have a net-positive impact on biodiversity.

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