Development of a numerical modelling method to predict the seismic signals generated by wind farms

Abstract

In efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, renewable energies have been increasingly leveraged to generate power; in particular, the number of wind turbines has risen sharply in recent years and continues to grow. However, being mechanically coupled to the earth, wind turbines also generate ground vibrations, which can have adverse effects on the capability of seismic observatories to detect and analyse earthquakes; nevertheless, the distances at which these signals modulate seismic records are disputed between the operators of wind farms and seismic observatories. Here, to quantify the noise signal amplitudes at distant seismometers, we develop the first numerical model to predict the seismic wavefield emitted by wind farms and simulate the complex effects of wavefield interferences, surface topography and attenuation. This modelling approach can reliably quantify the influences of multiple wind turbines on ground motion recordings and thus provide necessary information to aid decision-making in advance of wind farm installation.