Resource Library Category: U.K. (74 items)
Documents presented here are not the product of nor are they necessarily endorsed by National Wind Watch. This resource library is provided to assist anyone wishing to research the issue of industrial wind power and the impacts of its development. The information should be evaluated by each reader to come to their own conclusions about the many areas of debate.
Damage Limitation
Source: Markieta, Michael; and Carver, Steve
Regular visitors to the Scottish hills cannot have failed to notice the increasing environmental influence of renewable energy in recent years. Windfarms now feature prominently in views from many of our most iconic ‘wild’ mountains, a trend likely to accelerate with the Scottish Government’s tight timetable to generate all of Scotland’s power needs with low carbon technologies. If many more large onshore windfarms now look inevitable, then the question of how best to minimise their environmental impact arguably gains greater urgency. Is it possible both to develop and to conserve the large areas of scenic wild landscape for which Scotland is notable in a European context? Where are the areas which if developed would minimise the extent of intrusion on the remaining uninfluenced landscape? A new study by Steve Carver and Michael Markieta of the Wildland Research Institute at the University of Leeds aims to address this question.
The team summarise their work for UK Hillwalking here, with links to the interactive mapping they’ve been using to determine landscape impacts.
Windfarms beyond the National Park boundary will soon be prominent in this view from Braeriach
No High Ground – mapping out the landscape and renewable energy conflict
We’ve all seen the headlines. We’ve all seen them sprouting up across the mountain landscape, cluttering the horizon as we look out from our favourite hill. We’ve all had those well-worn debates with friends and colleagues across the dinner table or down the pub over a pint as to why they are a good or a bad thing. We all know we have to do something about our insatiable demand for electrical energy, but what we don’t know is just how much impact wind turbines have and will have on our landscape. What we do know is that wind energy is having a significant impact on the Scottish landscape and that this is set to increase over the next few years as more wind farms are constructed. The SNP are firmly committed to increasing investment in the renewable energy sector and have set a target for Scotland to generate 100% of its energy requirements from renewable sources by 2020. Although the renewable mix is likely to include hydro, wave and tidal power it is likely that the bulk of the burden in reaching this ambitious target will fall on the shoulders of wind, both onshore and offshore, because this is where the engineering challenges are better understood and the investment:returns ratio is most profitable. This can only mean one thing… more turbines on the hills and along our coasts.
‘The area of the Scottish countryside that is free from visual influence caused by built development declined from 41% in 2002 to 28% in 2009′
A recent analysis carried out by Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) showed that the area of the Scottish countryside that is free from visual influence caused by built development declined from 41% in 2002 to 31% in 2008. More recently still, this figure has now declined to 28% in 2009. While this figure is based on all built structures (airports, roads, railways, pylons, urban areas, etc. and importantly existing wind turbines) it is an alarming trend and one that potentially masks the contribution to this erosion of landscape character and values that is due to wind energy developments. Earlier work by SNH showed that in the central Highlands the amount of land free from impacts caused by road and rail access, plantation forestry, hydro power and electrical transmission lines declined rapidly between 1860, 1950 and 2000. Government claims that “Scotland has the potential to become the Saudi Arabia of renewable” backed by the 100% renewable target has surely given a green light to further expansion of wind energy over the next few years. Such a trend is not without its detractors and questions have been raised in Parliament by the John Muir Trust on this.
Meanwhile, other aspects of the Scottish economy depend heavy on tourism with estimates ranging from £5-10billion from 15million visitors per year with figures set to increase by almost two fold by 2020. Of course, some of this revenue is from people visiting cultural centres like Glasgow and Edinburgh, but many of Scotland’s visitors come for the landscape whether it’s to walk, climb, sail, play golf, fish, shoot or just enjoy the magnificent countryside from bus or car. A key characteristic of the Scottish countryside is its wildness; the qualities of which are most strongly expressed in those areas that are dominated by natural or near-natural vegetation, lack of human intrusion from built structures and the rugged, challenging and remote nature of the land. Recent surveys on behalf of SNH in 2007 and 2010, respectively, have reported that 91% of Scottish residents think that it is important to have wild places and 98% thought that wild land in Scotland should be protected.
‘Where are the areas which if developed would minimise the extent of intrusion on the remaining uninfluenced landscape?’
It would seem that 2020 is a significant date here in both respects; as an ambitious target for renewable energy generation and a hopeful one for tourism revenue. However, there seems to be an obvious conflict, one that implies that more wind turbines will mean a bigger impact on the landscape and potentially, therefore, less tourism. Research currently underway at the Wildland Research Institute at the University of Leeds is attempting to provide some of the answers as to exactly how existing and planned wind farms are impacting on Scotland’s landscape. The work attempts to provide greater information about the cumulative effects of wind turbines in the Scottish landscape, such as how many turbines are visible, how much of them can be seen given the terrain and exactly big they look . As already discussed, the extent of Scotland’s landscape that is unaffected with a view of modern human artefacts is decreasing rapidly and the effect of wind turbines needs to be accurately monitored. Our analysis takes into account all turbines in the various stages, including those already built as well as those in approved, planned and scoping stages. The basic aim of this study is to identify areas where further development of Scotland’s wind energy potential will not mean further erosion of the landscape quality and further reduction of the 28% figure.
Figure 1
Figure 2
See Figure 2 as an interactive map on Maptube here.
To do this we make extensive use of computer mapping techniques and digital map data together with a technique known as “viewshed” analysis to map the turbines’ zone of visual influence (ZVI). Generally, a viewshed analysis is performed to identify the areas from where a turbine can be seen or not seen. The results show the areas that are within or outwith the ZVI as a map like the one shown in Figure 1. With modern computing techniques, a viewshed for over 4200 wind turbines in Scotland can be computed in a matter of hours, rather than days or weeks or even months. Currently, 71% of Scottish countryside is without a view of an installed turbine. However, if all the wind turbines that are currently approved or in the planning or scoping phase are built, then this figure will fall to 49%. Added to the existing visual impact from other human artefacts reported in the SNH work, then it is unlikely that many areas of the Scottish landscape will be free from visual influence by the 2020 date. However, logic dictates that there must be some places where a wind farm could effectively be hidden from view, so that those areas currently without a view of a turbine or other human artefact are either not adversely affected or reduced further still. By utilizing careful application of the viewshed analysis, we can reverse engineer the primary outputs (where you can and can’t see a wind turbine) to check if there are any areas which can be further developed so as to not further reduce the amount of the remaining uninfluenced landscape.
Early indications are that there are very few areas that can be further developed without reducing the remaining uninfluenced landscape. This begs a further question: where are the areas which if developed would minimise the extent of intrusion on the remaining uninfluenced landscape? Inherently, the question is rooted in humanistic perception of acceptable levels of cumulative impacts. For discussion’s sake, the top 10% lowest impact zones are shown above (Figure 2). These are located mainly around existing wind farms, such as Whitelee Wind Farm, as well as various offshore areas.
Figure 3
Figure 4
Figure 3 interactive version here.
Figure 4 interactive version here.
We have also run a similar analysis for areas in Scotland that are protected for their exceptional biodiversity or landscape value. The total land area protected for its biodiversity (including Natura2000 sites, National Nature Reserves, etc.) is actually very large and consequently the analysis reports that there are very few areas (Figure 3) that do not have a view of these protected areas. However, fewer areas of Scotland are covered by landscape designations (National Parks and National Scenic Areas) and therefore the viewshed analysis reveals much larger regions (Figure 4), mainly in Aberdeenshire, which do not have a view of a protected landscape.
‘Further renewable energy developments in Scotland need to be carefully sited to avoid conflict with landscape policy and tourism potential’
While the results for the biodiversity and landscape areas are different, there is an important point to be made here, namely that the biodiversity areas are often quite fragmented whereas the landscape areas are not. Biodiversity can be found across a range of scales from your local pond to whole landscapes, but in the long run the resilience and sustainability of that diversity depends on the connectivity and unfettered state of natural ecosystems and processes, and that these require large areas to be natural in. So, in the long run it is actually quite difficult to separate biodiversity from landscape as logic dictates that high biodiversity tends to produce beautiful and natural looking landscapes, while large, unmodified landscapes gives nature room to flourish, such that the two remain mutually inclusive. The important take home message here is that policy and decision making on wind energy in Scotland needs to take into account the cumulative impacts of not only the wind turbines on the Scottish landscape, but also the protected areas for their exceptional biodiversity or landscape characteristics and values. The problem here is that while the area within protected high value landscapes is remarkably beautiful, the viewshed from within and into the protected landscape area extends way beyond the boundary. In essence, the value of the National Park or NSA is detracted by any tall wind turbines outside of boundary that are visible, but also within the viewshed of the protected area. Results suggest that 58% of the installed wind turbines are visible from a designated protected landscape and if wind turbines in all stages of development are taken into consideration, this figure may well increase to something like 62%.
Interactive map of Wildness Quality here.
It is our opinion that further renewable energy developments in Scotland need to be carefully sited to avoid conflict with landscape policy and tourism potential. There is no perfect solution, so we will probably have to accept some level of compromise both from a landscape and biodiversity perspective. While what we are doing here attempts to provide a technical response to a complex social (landscape values and climate change) and economic (energy vs tourism) problem, it is clear that the answer is essentially a spatial one and the kind of methods described can provide the information base on which better informed decisions and policy can be made.
Michael Markieta and Steve Carver
Wildland Research Institute, University of Leeds
June 2011
Effect of a common wind shear adjustment methodology on the assessment of wind farms when applying ETSU-R-97
Source: Stigwood, Mike
Executive summary
This research paper has been commissioned by MAS Environmental Ltd. It challenges many of the commonly accepted assumptions on the influence of wind shear on wind turbine noise introduced by an article published in 2009. The article outlined changes to the assessment of wind shear reasoning that by altering background noise levels for wind shear, permitted turbine noise limits would be lowered.
The 2009 article method for assessing wind shear was not based on research and was developed following some widely stated, but now shown to be incorrect, assumptions about the effects of wind shear.
This paper investigates the differences in turbine noise assessment as recommended in the article method and as recommended in ETSU-R-97, the current UK guidance for assessing wind farm noise. Using data measured at a number of wind farm sites around the country comparison is made between the difference in margin between predicted turbine noise level and associated limits as calculated by the article method and by the application of ETSU-R-97 as written. This paper explores whether there are any benefits to using the article method, however small, and reviews the consequences for local communities in adopting this change.
The study concluded that the desired benefit using the article method at all wind speeds, and especially at 5-7m/s where the article method was expected to perform best, is not realised. Where standardised wind shear conditions as implemented by the article, which do not relate to those conditions causing complaint, were substituted for the actual wind shear conditions likely to cause complaint more turbine noise was allowed. Further, the comparison showed that in all cases analysed there was a loss of community protection when adopting the article method.
Complaint against the UK in re: UN Convention on Persons with Disabilities
Source: Watson, George
I lodge the following complaint against the United Kingdom Government in relation to the terms and Articles contained in the United Nations Convention on Persons with Disabilities. The UK Government are responsible for the drafting, administration and enactment of the UK planning legislation throughout the countries that make up the United Kingdom. In addition, the United Kingdom Government are the signatories of the aforementioned UN Convention and are bound by the terms contained thereof.
I would advise you that should the UK Government permit (directly or indirectly), encourage, or are complicit in any planning consent awards for ANY ADDITIONAL wind turbines throughout the United Kingdom that would not comply with the provisions of the Convention, I reserve the right to make an application to the courts for an Interim Interdict/Injunction that would protect the legal rights of persons with Disabilities. The medical evidence is clear and unequivocal that wind turbines cause serious medical problems and exacerbate current medical conditions.
I submit my complaint as follows:
United Nations Convention on Persons with Disabilities:
1) Article 3 – General Principles: (c) Full and effective participation and inclusion in society;
(e) Equality of opportunity; Disabled persons do not participate in the planning process on an equal basis with those without a Disability. The Governments involved fail to provide planning applications in ‘Braille’ to allow those with a visual Disability to have ‘Effective Participation’ in the planning process. The obvious health problems from wind turbines on ALL groups in society make it even more important that the vulnerable members of society are allowed to have an effective participation. There are no special procedures put in place in the UK to allow those with a Disability to address the Planning Committee on particular applications.
a) Article 3 will be violated by a failure to ‘effective participation’ by the authorities failing to provide the application in ‘Braille’ to allow those with a visual impairment to participate in the process.
2) Article 10 – Right to Life: If the person with a Disability had walking difficulties, or was unable to walk, they would be at a substantial disadvantage to someone without a Disability from the on-going health and other issue’s from wind turbines. They would not be able to simply ‘get out’ for the day due to their Disability or they may suffer from a mental health Disability and do not know or understand that they are in danger from wind turbines. Governments are failing to acknowledge or accept the mounting medical evidence against wind turbines and are exposing the most vulnerable members of society to long term health problems from wind turbines.
3) Article 11 – Situations of Risk – Governments shall take, in accordance with their obligations under International law, including International Humanitarian law and International Human Rights law, all necessary measures to ensure the protection and safety of persons with Disabilities in situations of risk…This can be interpreted as including ‘protection and safety of persons from Government policies if they are a threat to the life and health of a person with a Disability’ under the terms of International Human Rights law.
4) Article 12 – Equal recognition before the law – (3) State parties shall take appropriate measures to provide access by persons with Disabilities to the support they may require in exercising their legal capacity. This includes free legal representation whilst exercising their rights and protection from ‘undue influence’ from Government.
5) Article 13 -Access to Justice – This includes all legal proceedings, at investigative and preliminary stages as direct or indirect participants.
6) Article 15 – Freedom from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment – The World Health Organisation has stated that ‘Sleep Deprivation’ is a form of torture. There is a mountain of information that clearly shows that wind turbines cause ‘Sleep Deprivation’ in every sited area throughout the United Kingdom.
a) Article 15 will be violated when any wind turbine causes the complainant to have an interruption to their sleep for prolonged periods in the same night. The World Health Organisation has stated that noise above 30db in a bedroom will cause ‘Sleep Deprivation’.
7) Article 16 – Freedom from exploitation – The definition of ‘exploitation’ is “to take advantage of (a person, situation, etc) esp unethically or unjustly for one’s own ends”. The UK Government has failed to provide a planning application in ‘Braille’ that would allow the visually impaired to participate in the planning process. This would be self evident in the number of objectors or supporters of a planning application from the visually impaired currently on record. The United Kingdom Government has already confirmed that they have no record of any planning objections from the visually impaired and that they are unaware of planning applications being available in ‘Braille’.
a) Article 16 would be violated as those with a visual impairment are prohibited from being included in the planning process.
b) Article 16(2) states that “State Parties shall also take all appropriate measures to prevent all forms of exploitation …. State Parties have allowed the Energy Companies to make planning applications for wind turbines knowing that those with a visual impairment would be excluded from participating. The United Kingdom Government are complicit in the exploitation of the visually impaired and thereby in violation of the aforementioned Article.
c) Article 16(3) states “In order to prevent the occurrence of all forms of exploitation, violence and abuse, State Parties shall ensure that all facilities and programmes designed to serve persons with disabilities are effectively monitored by Independent Authorities”. The United Kingdom Government have no such regime in operation and are in violation of the aforementioned Article.
d) Article 16(5) states “State Parties shall put in place effective legislation and policies, including women – and child focussed legislation and policies, to ensure that instances of exploitation, violence and abuse against persons with disabilities are identified, investigated and, where appropriate, prosecuted.” No such legislation or policy decisions have been put in place by the United Kingdom Government that prevents cases of ‘exploitation’ of the visually impaired by the planning system. In addition, there have been no prosecutions for violations by the United Kingdom planning system. The United Kingdom Government are in violation and, complicit in continued violation, of the aforementioned Article.
8) Article 17 – Protecting the Integrity of the Person – states “Every person with disabilities has a right to respect for his or her physical or mental integrity on an equal basis with others.” A person with learning difficulties will be subjected to additional and exacerbated health problems from wind turbines. The person with learning difficulties will not have the mental capacity to participate in the planning process to object, as no provisions are made for such an occurrence by the United Kingdom Government. In addition, the United Kingdom Government has a legal obligation to protect the most vulnerable in society and a failure to act is a violation of the aforementioned Article.
9) Article 21 – Freedom of expression and opinion, and access to information – states “State parties shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that persons with disabilities can exercise the right to freedom of expression and opinion, including the freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas on an equal basis with others and through all forms of communication of their choice, as defined in Article 2 of the present Convention, including by:
a) Providing information intended for the general public to persons with disabilities in accessible formats and technologies appropriate to different kinds of disabilities in a timely manner and without additional cost;
b) Accepting and facilitating the use of sign language, Braille, augmentative and alternative communication, and all other accessible means, modes and formats of communication of their choice by persons with disabilities in official interactions.
c) Urging private entities that provide services to the general public, including through the Internet, to provide information and services in accessible and useable formats for persons with disabilities.
d) The current planning process in the United Kingdom violates the aforementioned Article as any planning application is only in a single format and does not take into consideration persons with a disability. Those who are visually impaired are unable to scrutinise the planning application in Braille and does not conform to the Convention principles.
10) Article 22 – Respect for Privacy – states “No person with disabilities, regardless of place of residence or living arrangements, shall be subject to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or her privacy, family, home or correspondence or other types of communication or to unlawful attacks on his or her honour and reputation. Persons with disabilities have the right to protection of the law against such interference or attacks.” The United Kingdom Government are in violation of this Article as the planning system does not make special provisions for the participation of persons with disabilities. The granting of planning consent for wind turbines is unlawful due to the failure of persons with disabilities participating in the planning process. This is also a violation of privacy, family and home of people with disabilities due to the unlawful granting of planning consent due to the planning application only being presented in a single format and does not take into consideration those with a visual impairment.
I request that you acknowledge receipt of my complaint.
Yours sincerely
George Watson
Wind Turbines Can Be Bad For Your Health
Source: Juby, Bernard
In the lemming-like world rush to build these uneconomic monstrosities (where only huge, often hidden, tax-payer subsidies make them viable) there are numerous reasons why they should not be built. This Blog concentrates only on the potential damage to peoples’ health.
Not all wind farms cause a problem with noise. Earlier examples which were built in remote parts rarely caused problems but as these sites became used developers looked more and more towards developed areas and thus came ever closer to human habitation.
There are two potential sources of noise: that from the turbine blades passing through the air at the speed of a light aircraft and that from the gearbox and generator in the nacelle (or housing). The aerofoil blade (usually three) the length of a jumbo jet’s wing whose tip travels at 150 miles per hour (241 km/h) and harvesting 0.6 MW or more of power inevitably makes a substantial sound. The air passing through the rotor is swept into turbulent wake vortices (which, incidentally, attract, trap and kill many bats in a process akin to the “bends” in divers) is the source of much of the sound. Within a few feet it encounters an obstruction in the form of the tower as a blade passes every one to two seconds, even at its slowest viable turning speed. This imposes a pulsating quality to the aerodynamic sound which many people find deeply disturbing.
Other periodic sounds arise as the blades sweep down into the region of wind shear so that the lowest blade position experiences both a different wind speed and varying turbulence. Some developers state categorically that, “Noise isn’t a problem” but they rely on ETSU-R-97 which is not a fit instrument to assess it.
Clusters of windfarms can produce further interaction of sound periodicity as the rotors of different machines go into and out of phase creating the periodic sounds (aerodynamic or amplitude modulation) generating the “whoomph, whoomph” at one or two second intervals rising and falling in loudness — an effect which disturbs some people and which can be likened to the base “woofer” speaker in a sound system.
Furthermore, as well as the normally audible sounds machines produce a low frequency sound from vibrations which ranges from the barely audible “sub-woofer” frequencies below 200 Hz down to wavelengths which cannot be heard but often sensed as bodily discomfort (below 20 Hz) and often referred to as infrasound which is difficult to measure instrumentally but which effects ALL animals, including horses, cattle and sheep.
Why ETSU-R-97 isn’t fit for purpose
Noise is measured in decibels (dB) which is a logarithmic measure of sound pressure levels in the air and shown as a ratio to a reference pressure. An increase of, say, 3dB doubles the noise level.
Environmental noise levels are usually expressed in dB(A) which includes a correction for the frequencies best heard by the human ear. Unfortunately this biases against the low frequency end of the spectrum and fails where low frequencies such as repetetive bass notes in music and the “whoomph” of turbine blades are important.
The C weighting curve [dB(C)] is better as it is less selective against low frequency but ETSU-R-97 mandates dB(A) rather than dB(C) — as do many other sound measuring conventions.
In the Whinash Enquiry (2005) acoustic consultant R. Bowdler stated, “ETSU-R-97 Why It Is Wrong”:
The conclusions of ETSU-R-97 are so badly argued as to be laughable in parts (the daytime standard is based on the principle that it does not matter if people cannot get to sleep on their patio so long as they can get to sleep in their bedrooms. [But what about night workers? —BJ] It is the only standard where the permissable night time level is higher than the permissable day time level.
He further comments, in Para. 1 of the Executive Summary:
This document describes a framework for the measurement of wind farm noise and gives indicative noise levels thought to offer a reasonable degree of protection to wind farm neighbours without placing unreasonable restrictions on wind farm development or adding unduly to the costs and administrative burdens on wind farm developers or local authorities.
Furthermore, in technical publications, writers such as G.P. Van den Berg’s investigation of a Dutch wind farm of variable speed turbines (10-20 rpm) found that complaints about noise, especially at night, extended to 1.9 km whereas the developer had claimed that there would be no problem over 0.5 km (2004, “Effects of the wind profile at night on wind turbine sound” — Journal of Sound and Vibration, 277, 955-970.)
He also showed that the night time wind speed at hub height was up to 2.6 times higher than expected from the conventional extrapolation from wind speed measured at 10m height. The higher wind speed causes faster rotation and up to 15 dB higher sound levels relative to the same reference wind speed during the day.
He concluded that day or night the background noise did not effectively mask the thumping sound of the blades passing the tower. More telling is the fact that the thumping is not perceptible close to the turbines but only at a distance.
Shadow Flicker — The Stroboscopic Effect
When the sun passes behind the hub of a turbine shadows of the rotating blades are repeatedly cast over nearby properties. The seasonal timing and duration of this flickering can be calculated from the size, relative alignment of the site and its geographical position.
The flicker rate from a typical three-bladed turbine is below three per second (at 60 rpm) so photosensitive epilepsy from any stroboscopic effect is unlikely. The problem arises when there are several such turbines in alignment with any habitation whereby the shadows of the blades can inter-react with one another causing a cumulative flicker of over 3 per second. Flicker rate is not affected by distance so any risk does not significantly decrease until it reaches about 100 times the hub height — 10 km approx. for a big turbine; (Harding et al, 2008)
Siting turbines so that they catch the early morning or late evening sun can compound the problem by silhouetting.
As recently as March 2011, under the head-line, “Flicker of Hope for wind-turbine victims” the UK national daily press reported (inter alia) that, “The misery of shadow flicker, which blights the lives of people living near some wind turbines, could soon be over.” It goes on to say that the report commissioned by the Department for Energy and Climate Change recommended that turbines should not be built any closer that 10 rotor diameters from the nearest homes. Translated this means that an 80m blade span (262′) should be at least 800m or half a mile away. Currently, in France for example, they are proposing and have built them within 400m of habitation.
The report recommended that buildings within a third of a mile should not suffer flicker for more than 30 minutes a day or 30 hours per year.
The paper reports one Lee Moroney, a wind energy expert with the Renewable Energy Foundation, as saying “that wind turbines should not be built within a mile of residential areas”.
Les turbines de vent peuvent être mauvaises pour votre santé
Cliquez ici pour cet article en français.
