Noise Impact Assessment of Thermal Plant Facilities on Receptor Environments

Abstract

Noise pollution is considered as a serious environmental nuisance in the urban areas. This study has used the VDI code 2714 to investigate the impacts of the noise from all the power generation and ancilliary facilities in the proposed Independent Power Plant, Agbara, Ogun State receptor environment. Kriging interpolation method in SurferR 8.0 software to predict noise emission levels within the fence line of the proposed Independent Power Plant. Calculations of possible noise levels at some receptors locations around the plant were carried out using the VDI code 2714. Four operation scenarios were considered in this study. The scenarios considered include: Noise emission from power generation facilities only (Scenario 1); Noise from the use of Compressors and Transformers (Scenario 2); Noise emission from the operation of power generation and ancillary equipment (Scenario 3); and Noise emission from the use of Backup Generators (Scenario 4). The maximum noise from the four scenarios were 112.34, 114.58, 116.61 and 110.01 dB(A), respectively, which is above the 8-hour 90 dB(A) limit recommended by the Federal Ministry of Environment (FMEnv). The operation of the proposed power plant will not have significant impact on the receptor environments except for Karogbaji which receives less than 12 dB(A) for the worst-case scenario (Scenario 3). The modeling results show that the predicted noise levels generated by the proposed operation would generally be within the established noise criteria at all the receptor locations under all conditions.