Researchers from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Provide Details of New Studies and Findings in the Area of Wind Turbines (In the Shadow of Wind Energy: Predicting Community Exposure and Annoyance To Wind Turbine Shadow Flicker In the ...)

2022 MAY 12 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Energy Daily News -- Investigators discuss new findings in Energy - Wind Turbines. According to news reporting originating from Berkeley, California, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “The moving shadows caused by wind turbines, referred to as ‘shadow flicker’ (‘SF’), are known to generate annoyance in a subset of the exposed population. However, the relationship between the level of modeled SF exposure and the population’s perceived SF and SF annoyance is poorly understood.”

Financial support for this research came from United States Department of Energy (DOE).

Our news editors obtained a quote from the research from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, “Improved understanding of SF exposure impacts could provide a basis for exposure thresholds and, in turn, potentially improve community acceptance of and experience with wind power projects. This study modeled SF exposure at nearly 35,000 residences across 61 wind projects in the United States, 747 of which were also survey respondents. Using these results, we analyzed the factors that led to perceived SF and self-reported SF annoyance. We found that perceived SF is primarily an objective response to SF exposure, distance to the closest turbine, and whether the respondent moved in after the wind project was built. Conversely, SF annoyance was not significantly correlated with SF exposure. Rather, SF annoyance is primarily a subjective response to wind turbine aesthetics, annoyance to other anthropogenic sounds, level of education, and age of the respondent. We also examined regulations governing SF in the sample project areas and compared them to SF exposure in the surrounding population.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “Additionally, we found that noise limits could serve as a proxy for SF exposure, as 90% of those exposed to wind turbine sound of no more than 45 dBA L1h had SF exposure of less than 8 h per year (a prototypical EU regulatory threshold).”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: In the Shadow of Wind Energy: Predicting Community Exposure and Annoyance To Wind Turbine Shadow Flicker In the United States. Energy Research & Social Science, 2022;87. Energy Research & Social Science can be contacted at: Elsevier, Radarweg 29, 1043 Nx Amsterdam, Netherlands.

The news editors report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Ben Hoen, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Cyclotron Rd, Berkeley, CA 94720, United States. Additional authors for this research include Ryan Haac, Ken Kaliski, Ryan Darlow and Joseph Rand.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2021.102471. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

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