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There is a lot of misinformation about wind power and the consequent local impact. Inaccurate or biased information is often sourced from individuals or groups who want to oppose wind farms or who are not fully conversant with the full facts. Here we look at 4 of the most common misconceptions regarding wind farms and provide the facts to counter them.
1. Wind turbines spoil the landscape
2. Tourists hate wind farms
3. Wind turbines are noisy
4. Wind power is not reliable
See the FAQs section if questions remain unanswered.
This is a highly subjective issue. Turbines aren't invisible, but sensitively sited wind farms are, to many people, a welcome addition to a landscape. Being visible is not necessarily the same as being intrusive. While some people have expressed concern about the impact of wind turbines on the beauty of the landscape, others see them as symbols of the better, less polluted future they can help to deliver.
The landscape we inhabit is largely human-made and it will evolve over time. In comparison to other energy developments like nuclear, coal and gas power stations, or open cast mining, wind farms have relatively little visual impact. Nevertheless sites within Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs) or National Parks are unlikely to be appropriate for large wind farms.
The increased utilisation of renewable energy and greater use of wind power will mean that we will have more of these structures visible from our townscape and in our landscape in the future. If there isn’t a switch to cleaner forms of energy, climate change will severely and irrevocably alter much of our landscape as well as the animal and plant life it contains.
There is no evidence to suggest that wind farms discourage tourists, indeed many wind farms are themselves tourist attractions.
The UK's first commercial wind farm in Cornwall for example, received 350,000 visitors in its first 8 years of operation. An energy centre was opened at the site in 2001 and received 50,000 visitors in its first year.
Research conducted in May 2004 by the University of the West of England (Fullabrook Wind Farm Proposal, North Devon; Evidence gathering of the impact of wind farms on visitor numbers and tourist experience) found that the development of a wind farm was unlikely to have a negative impact on local tourism. The findings of the research study indicated that following the construction of a wind farm, it is likely that there will be:
Modern turbines are actually very quiet! Thanks to advances in wind turbine technology, well designed, well sited turbines can be quiet enough to cause no disturbance to people living just a few hundred metres away.
At these distances, any noise turbines do make is usually drowned out by the natural noise of the wind itself in the trees and vegetation. To protect nearby residents from any undue disturbance, proposals to install wind turbines are required to meet strict noise standards.
The sound of a working wind farm is less than that from normal road traffic or an office. Even when wind speed increases it is difficult to detect any increase in turbine sound above the increase in normal background noise.
The theoretical maximum energy, which a wind turbine can extract from the wind impinging upon it, is around 60%. However, the meaning of efficiency is different with wind energy, where the fuel is free. The primary concern is not efficiency for its own sake, but to improve productivity in order to bring the price of wind energy down.
There is a lot of confusion about the reliability of different sources of electricity. No power stations are able to operate all the time without stopping. Many so-called reliable sources such as nuclear plants suffer from unexpected 'outages' when reactors must be shut down, often at short notice, for essential safety maintenance.
Unreliability of this kind is far harder to deal with than the intermittency of wind power, as the amounts of electricity involved are generally much higher. By comparison the variation in output from wind farms distributed around the country is scarcely noticeable.
A great advantage of wind power is that the available wind resource is much greater during the colder months of the year, when energy demand is at its highest. At present the National Grid can be operated effectively and economically with up to 20% of the electricity capacity being provided by variable energy sources such as wind. At the levels being considered over the next few decades for wind energy production, such variability can easily be accommodated by the grid system.
The UK is the windiest country in Europe, so there is a massive resource waiting to be used. And in the future, all our electricity could come from a mix of complementary renewable sources - balancing wind power with wave, tidal, solar and biomass.