Wind Sense: Generating Wind Turbine Noise Annoyance Maps for Ireland

Project Description

Ireland now ranks second in the EU, behind Denmark, for its share of wind generated electricity (28.1% in 2018), and as part of the Irish Government’s Climate Action Plan (CAP, 2019), has committed to an ambitious target to generate 70% of Irish electricity needs through renewable sources. To meet this commitment, Ireland must expand its development of onshore wind farms to deliver 260 MW of installed Wind Energy capacity, per year. The expansion of wind energy in Ireland must seek to minimise the impact on those who will live near wind farms. Wind turbine noise (WTN) has been found to cause increased annoyance that leads to negative mental and physical health outcomes. While the relationship between WTN and annoyance remains unclear, available research has examined the effects of WTN on annoyance ratings and has identified exposure-response thresholds for components of WTN, informing turbine design and government policy. However, the exposure in such thresholds is typically measured in terms of amplitude or loudness of WTN, rather than the prevalence or strength of specific features of WTN that are associated with annoyance (e.g., amplitude modulation). The proposed research will investigate the prevalence and annoyance impact of WTN features around Irish wind farms. The STEM partner will model the prevalence of WTN features related to annoyance in the proximity of designated wind farms. The Psychology partner will then present combinations of WTN features derived from these models to volunteers under laboratory conditions to assess the annoyance of these features alone and in combination. By combining these findings, the partners will generate WTN annoyance maps for the candidate wind farms and pave the way for a national WTN annoyance map to inform turbine developers and policy makers. Dissemination plans include a focus on public/community outreach and aims to reach an international audience.