Wind turbine emissions: Interdisciplinary analysis and mitigation approaches

Although immission guidelines are met, sound emissions from wind turbines can cause annoyance to residents. So far, standardised procedures for annoyance analysis and objective measurements over longer periods of time are missing. However, such studies are needed in order to be able to comparatively assess emissions and to develop transferable mitigation approaches.

Our interdisciplinary research questions are how do meteorology and geological subsurface interact during the propagation of sound and ground motion, how is wind turbine noise perceived and assessed by humans, which factors do influence perception and which countermeasures are perceived as relieving under certain weather conditions.

Based on the experiences of our predecessor project TremAc we perform an interdisciplinary problem analysis by means of surveys and measurements of meteorological, acoustic and seismic parameters. Recommendations for mitigation approaches are derived from the data and evaluated.

The overall objectives of the Inter-Wind project are to derive transferable analytical approaches and recommendations for problem analyses to develop mitigation measures as well as sound and ground motion propagation forecasts for wind farms in regions with rocky underground. We cooperate with the local municipality and the citizens' initiative Windkraftanlagen Kuchen as well as the operators of the wind farms Tegelberg and Lauterstein, all located in Southwest Germany.

At the future wind energy test site WINSENT, wind speed, atmospheric stratification, cloud cover and precipitation, and the respective propagation of sound waves in the air (acoustics) and elastic waves in the ground (seismology) are measured. Interviews with residents will be conducted before and after the installation of two research wind turbines. In order to derive transferable approaches, the measurements will be applied to commercial wind farms: coincident measurements and interviews with residents will be carried out at the nearby wind farms Tegelberg and Lauterstein.

The project partners are: Environmental- and Social Psychology at MSH Medical School Hamburg and Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Geophysical Institute at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT-GPI), Stuttgart Wind Energy (SWE) at the Institute of Aircraft Design at University Stuttgart, Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg (ZSW)

Federal Ministry of Economy and Energy under a resolution by the Lower House of the German Parliament (Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie aufgrund eines Beschlusses des Deutschen Bundestages, support code 03EE2023A-D); accompanied by the project-executing agency Projektträger Jülich.