Spectrum analysis of wind turbine noise in Vydmantai

Abstract

Wind energy is an auspicious technology which helps to transform today’s society to the use of environmental friendly energy. However, sound emissions from wind turbine have been one of the most important challenges in wind energy engineering. As technology has advanced, wind turbines have become quieter, but sound from wind turbines is still an important sitting criterion. In present work efforts have been taken to indentify features of wind plant noise that may be the reasons of public concern. The noise generated by wind plant located near Vydmantai was analyzed. It was shown that although wind plant noise does not exceed recommended noise pressure levels at least at the distances larger than 200 m, however, in some frequency ranges the increase of noise can be distinguished in wind plant noise spectra. Comparison of noise spectra of different environmental noise sources, particularly, comparison with spectra of traffic generated noise shows that intensification of some wind plant noise spectral components may be the reason for public annoyance. The impact of the presence of audible tones in noise to the annoyance relative to the same noise (level) without audible tones is reviewed. It is justified that a penalty of 3–6 dB should be added to the measured sound pressure levels to compensate for the extra annoyance due to the clearly audible in the noise.