Survey on Perception of Small Wind Turbine Noise

Research investigating the extent to which noise from small wind turbines can be heard in our towns and how this affects those living close to small wind systems has found that people with negative attitudes to turbines are more likely to perceive them as being noisy.

When it comes to visual impact, though, the initial findings of PhD student Jennifer Taylor’s research suggests that people’s attitude to turbines was not necessarily negatively affected if they lived within sight of the systems.

However, people who can see a turbine from their home tended to perceive them as being noisy.

The University of Nottingham student stressed that she was still analysing the findings of her survey, based on responses to questionnaires completed by 137 people living near 12 different small wind installations.

Her study “Noise Issues, Noise Levels and Noise Perception from Small and Micro Wind Turbines” investigates people’s perception of noise attributed to small wind systems.

Jennifer will compare their perceived noise levels to the actual measured noise levels of small wind turbines at sites in, for example, Warwick and Nottingham.

Her study is timely given that the government has recently ended a public consultation period for changes to permitted development rights, potentially paving the way for wind turbines to be installed on homes and (up to 15 metres high) in industrial and agricultural areas without planning permission.

“There is a really big push for people to generate their own electricity,” Jennifer said.

The project was “interesting” as while there have been studies into larger systems, there were “gaps” in existing research which was based on large or isolated wind turbines and did not link noise annoyance with individual differences between people.

Survey participants reported that the most common perceived sounds small wind turbines made were: swooshing, humming, whistling, low or high pitched noise and buzzing.

The majority said they had positive attitudes to wind turbines, making comments such as “I think the turbines are a great idea to save money and love to hear them humming … along with the strong wind”.

However there were complaints too, with comments such as: “The small wind turbine make a BIG NOISE (sic). We can’t sleep …”
And: “Not only noisy but very ugly which depresses me”.

Jennifer’s analysis will include examining whether we can predict who is more likely to experience negative health symptoms as a result of hearing wind turbine noise, thus potentially helping to target interventions in the long run and establish what the issues are for local planners or turbine installers that might affect an installation.

She presented her initial findings at the Institute of Acoustics' recent Wind Turbine Noise meeting in Cardiff.