Understanding stress effects of wind turbine noise – The integrated approach

Abstract

To better understand causes and effects of wind turbine (WT) noise, this study combined the methodology of stress psychology with noise measurement to an integrated approach. In this longitudinal study, residents of a wind farm in Lower Saxony were interviewed on two occasions (2012, 2014) and given the opportunity to use audio equipment to record annoying noise. On average, both the wind farm and road traffic were somewhat annoying. More residents complained about physical and psychological symptoms due to traffic noise (16%) than to WT noise (10%, two years later 7%). Noise annoyance was minimally correlated with distance to the closest WT and sound pressure level, but moderately correlated with fair planning. The acoustic analysis identified amplitude-modulated noise as a major cause of the complaints. The planning and construction process has proven to be central − it is recommended to make this process as positive as possible. It is promising to develop the research approach in order to study the psychological and acoustic causes of WT noise annoyance even more closely. To further analysis of amplitude modulation we recommend longitudinal measurements in several wind farms to increase the data base ─ in the sense of “Homo sapiens monitoring”.