Thursday, 29 September 2016
09:00 - 10:30 Noise and visual impacts and you as the local resident
Environmental impacts & social acceptance  
     

This session will explore various technologies and methodologies to analyse and mitigate noise and visual impacts of wind farms. It will focus in particular on the capacity of the various technologies to foster acceptance among citizens living around a wind farm. Preventing negative impacts of wind farms on people means reducing noise and visual impact.

Chair and speakers will involve the audience by discussing the various examples of projects using these technologies. With the help of these examples, we will try to find out why certain technologies help to foster acceptance while others do not.

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Learning objectives

• Apply two new methodologies when analysing visual impact;
• Consider application of three approaches when analysing noise impacts;
• Explain ways of reducing noise and visual impact;
• Distinguish effective and less effective technologies for various kinds of wind power projects.

Co-chair(s):

Sara Koller Meteotest, Switzerland
Co-authors:
Tanja Humar (1) ^F Simon Albrecht (1) Koller Sara (1)
(1) Meteotest, Bern, Switzerland

Cumulative visibility analyses for wind parks within a regional context

Introduction

The visibility of wind turbines is one of the populations major concerns in the beginning of a wind park project and therefore highly relevant for its social acceptance. This makes visibility analyses an essential component for the communication with the stakeholders.
In Switzerland, planned wind parks can be located within short distance. To assist the regional planning of wind parks, Meteotest was asked to conduct a cumulative, regional visibility analysis of all planned and existing windturbines of a particular region.
While an individual visibility analysis shows the impact of one single wind park to the landscape, a cumulative regional visibility analysis points out the more and the less impacted areas within a whole region and puts the visibility of one single wind park into a context.


Approach

The visibility analyses will be carried out with the software ArcGIS and the extension "Spatial Analyst". All existing and planned wind turbines of a particular region will be considered. The visibility analysis will be carried out cumulative for all wind parks together as well as individually for every single wind park.
With a distance weigthing and the conclusion of the spatial population pattern, a comprehensive view of the impairment of the wind turbines to the landscape will be achieved.


Main body of abstract

The cumulative regional visibility analysis points out the areas that are more affected by the visibility of wind turbines as well as the ones that are less affected. The basic analysis shows for each 25 x 25 m raster cell within the study area how many turbines are visible. The distance of the observer to the wind turbine highly influences the impact of the visibility to the landscape. Therefore, a distance weighting is taken into account, that emphasizes the impact of nearby turbines.
The individual analysis of each wind park as well as the inclusion of the population numbers affected by the visibility of all wind parks as well as each single wind park separately, completes the study.



Conclusion

To analyse the visibility of planned wind parks cumulative as well as separately side by side enables the comparison of each wind park with the other. Furthermore, it helps the stakeholder to get an overview of the maximal impact to the landscape.


Learning objectives
Understand the cumulative impact of turbine visibility to a regional landscape.