Onshore wind energy use in spatial planning—a proposal for resolving conflicts with a dynamic safety distance approach

Abstract

The political agenda on wind power usage intends its further expansion in a large scale. As most energy sources, wind power can have negative impacts on humans and environment; this expansion can be accompanied by land use conflicts with land uses sensitive to disturbance. During operation, disturbances from noise, shadow, or ice throw can occur. Due to the dimensions of modern wind power systems, wind power farming can pose a threat to birds and bats (collision and avoidance) and may also lead to a change of landscape sceneries, which can cause conflicts with residents, nature conservation, or tourism interests. Therefore, the control of wind power expansions by spatial planning plays a key role for the mitigation of negative impacts as well as for its public acceptance. Spatial planning offers instruments to resolve potential conflicts with affected stakeholders. On a regional level, the determination of priority and exclusion areas for the use of wind power based on functional criteria represents the most essential planning measure. For the protection of affected residents and nearby housing areas, safety distance regulations are normally applied. Since most distance regulations are defined as fixed distance values, the question arises: if a static approach sufficiently considers the technical state and the further development of wind power systems with increasing plant heights as well as cumulating effects of large wind farms, i.e. cumulated noise effects that rise with the number of spin wheels. To take these factors better into account, the determination of safety distance could be dynamically bound to power plant height and wind farm size. This article introduces a dynamic approach for dimensioning safety distances, which consists of a formula to calculate distances in relation to the height of the wind power plants and the number of spin wheels. The formula takes shading, noise, and icefall into account. It is relevant for wind farm planning, as it does not only allow for determining distances from sensible land uses to wind power plants, but also allows for assessing variants of wind farms in terms of height and number of the spin wheels in a given area.