Resource Documents — latest additions
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Prevalence of wind farm amplitude modulation at long-range residential locations
Author: Hansen, Kristy; Nguyen, Phuc; Zajamšek, Branko; Catcheside, Peter; and Hansen, Colin
Abstract:
The presence of amplitude modulation (AM) in wind farm noise has been shown to result in increased annoyance. Therefore, it is important to determine how often this characteristic is present at residential locations near a wind farm. This study investigates the prevalence and characteristics of wind farm AM at 9 different residences located near a South Australian wind farm that has been the subject of complaints from local residents. It is shown that an audible indoor low-frequency tone was amplitude modulated at the blade-pass frequency for 20% of the time up to a distance of 2.4 km. The audible AM occurred for a similar percentage of time between wind farm percentage power capacities of 40% and 85%, indicating that it is important that AM analysis is not restricted to high power output conditions only. Although the number of AM events is shown to reduce with distance, audible indoor AM still occurred for 16% of the time at a distance of 3.5 km. At distances of 7.6 and 8.8 km, audible AM was only detected on one occasion. At night-time, audible AM occurred indoors at residences located as far as 3.5 km from the wind farm for up to 22% of the time.
Kristy L. Hansen, Phuc Nguyen, College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University, Tonsley, Australia
Branko Zajamšek, Peter Catcheside, College of Medicine, Flinders University, Bedford Park, Australia
Colin H. Hansen, School of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia
Journal of Sound and Vibration
Volume 455, 1 September 2019, Pages 136-149
doi: 10.1016/j.jsv.2019.05.008
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Industrial wind turbines and adverse health effects: A cardiologist’s view of the data
Author: Johnson, Ben
Download original document: “Industrial wind turbines and adverse health effects: A cardiologist’s view of the data”
Avian mortalities from two wind farms at Kutch, Gujarat and Davangere, Karnataka, India
Author: Kumar, Selvaraj Ramesh; et al.
[abstract] Wind power is renewable and helps reduce greenhouse gas emission from the energy sector; however, it also has undesirable impacts on the environment. Studies from Europe and the USA report negative impact of wind farms on wildlife, especially on birds. India, the fourth largest producer of wind energy and also a mega biodiverse country has little information on this issue. Here, we report bird collisions from two wind farms: one at Kutch, Gujarat in western India and another from Davangere, Karnataka in southern India. A total of 47 bird carcasses belonging to at least 11 species in a period of three years were reported from Kutch and seven carcasses of at least three species in a period of one year were recorded at Davengere wind farm. The estimated annual bird mortality rate for Kutch was 0.478 birds/turbine and for Davengere it was 0.466 birds/turbine.
Selvaraj Ramesh Kumar, Bombay Natural History Society, Mumbai 400 001, India
V. Anoop, P. R. Arun, Rajah Jayapal and A. Mohamed Samsoor Ali, Sálim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History, Coimbatore, India
CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 116, NO. 9, 10 MAY 2019
Download original document: “Avian mortalities from two wind farms at Kutch, Gujarat and Davangere, Karnataka, India”
Do Renewable Portfolio Standards Deliver?
Author: Greenstone, Michael; McDowell, Richard; and Nath, Ishan
[Abstract] Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) are the largest and perhaps most popular climate policy in the US, having been enacted by 29 states and the District of Columbia. Using the most comprehensive panel data set ever compiled on program characteristics and key outcomes, we compare states that did and did not adopt RPS policies, exploiting the substantial differences in timing of adoption. The estimates indicate that 7 years after passage of an RPS program, the required renewable share of generation is 1.8 percentage points higher and average retail electricity prices are 1.3 cents per kWh, or 11% higher; the comparable figures for 12 years after adoption are a 4.2 percentage point increase in renewables’ share and a price increase of 2.0 cents per kWh or 17%. These cost estimates significantly exceed the marginal operational costs of renewables and likely reflect costs that renewables impose on the generation system, including those associated with their intermittency, higher transmission costs, and any stranded asset costs assigned to ratepayers. The estimated reduction in carbon emissions is imprecise, but, together with the price results, indicates that the cost per metric ton of CO₂ abated exceeds $130 in all specifications and ranges up to $460, making it least several times larger than conventional estimates of the social cost of carbon. These results do not rule out the possibility that RPS policies could dynamically reduce the cost of abatement in the future by causing improvements in renewable technology.
Energy Policy Institute, Becker Friedman Institute for Economics, University of Chicago, April 2019
Michael Greenstone, University of Chicago and National Bureau of Economic Research
Richard McDowell, Amazon
Ishan Nath, University of Chicago
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