Learning from wind energy controversies: listening to the noise
Denmark has played a pioneering role in the development of wind energy and it generates a large proportion of the country’s electricity, yet noise from turbines can cause controversy. Researchers in the Co-Green project are looking at the issues around wind farm noise and how local communities can be better included in project planning, as Dr Julia Kirch Kirkegaard and Daniel Frantzen explain.
The wind energy sector accounts for the generation of over half of the total electricity consumed in Denmark, while the country is also an international leader in the development of turbine technologies, as well as in integrating wind power into the energy system. There is broad support for wind energy across the Danish population. “Most people in Denmark are pro-renewable energy and pro-wind, but they might argue that there are genuine issues with individual wind farms,” says Daniel Frantzen, a researcher at the Danish Technical University (DTU) working on the Co-Green project, an initiative backed by the Independent Research Fund Denmark (DFF). The noise associated with wind turbines is a prominent concern, an issue at the heart of the project. “Why is it that we see a lot of controversy over wind turbine noise?” asks Julia Kirch Kirkegaard, Professor at the Department of Technology, Management and Economics at DTU.
Co-Green project
As head of the project, Professor Kirkegaard is looking into the root causes of increased
“When developers think
about
Isolate the noise and simplify
bothered by the noise they generate,” says Frantzen. “It’s also been found that people who find wind turbines visually intrusive, who believe they don’t fit in the landscape, will perceive them as more noisy.”
Identify the noise and recognise other factors Many aspects to ‘acceptance’ that need to be understood together
that makes it more distinctive to some people, and that can make it more disruptive than other, more stable types of noise,” says Frantzen. “Things may also change in the surrounding landscape, so it adds up to a complex overall picture.”
public resistance to wind farms, with the wider aim of improving communication between local communities and technical experts. Wind farm development, and wind energy generally, is often regarded as a highly expert and techno-scientific process, which is regulated through policies, regulations, and planning law. “We refer to this governance mode of the energy transition as ‘technification’”, explains Professor Kirkegaard. However, this technical information does not fully reflect the way that lay people and communities are affected by the presence of wind farms, who often respond by describing their everyday experiences. “There is a clash of values, a struggle we refer to as ‘politicisation’,” continues Professor Kirkegaard. (Figure 1)
noise only
in very technical, physical terms, it doesn’t necessarily match the daily reality of people’s lives. Noise can disrupt people’s lives and activities, it has a cumulative impact.”
This can cause resentment and stimulate opposition to a development, which often centres around the issue of noise, the impact of which is difficult to measure objectively. While developers can take noise measurements and run models, this may not reflect the actual experiences of the people affected. “When developers think about noise only in very technical, physical terms, it doesn’t necessarily match the daily reality of people’s lives. Noise can disrupt people’s lives and activities, it has a cumulative impact,” points out Professor Kirkegaard. A wide variety of factors may affect the way people experience noise.
“For example, it’s well-established in the literature that if you benefit economically from wind farms then you will be less
The project team has reviewed many strands of scientific literature and interviewed not only local community members, but also a number of experts, aiming to build a deeper picture of the issue. They found that the various scientific disciplines currently involved in noise research (technical, health and social acceptance) understand noise as something fundamentally different. (Figure 2)
The efforts to address noise are thus different and sometimes contradictory. The isolation of the volume of a noise, as measured in dB(A), is a major factor in technical and health research. “Noise doesn’t have to be particularly loud to be disruptive,” says Frantzen. The characteristics of wind turbine noise are also an important consideration. “Wind turbine noise has a particular rhythm
A second strand of investigation centres around case studies on Danish wind farm projects at various stages of the planning process, where researchers have interviewed the actors involved, including local politicians, planners, developers and concerned citizens. The latter group includes people who have become engaged in controversies about wind farms, and while some opponents may be motivated by narrow concerns, Professor Kirkegaard says it is misleading to characterise them all in this way. “We’re trying to show that it’s more complicated than that. Opponents of wind farms often have good ideas about how things could be done differently and how local people could be involved,” she
stresses. However, it is often relatively late in the planning process that these alternatives are heard, meaning they are often formally dismissed, leading citizens to search for new means to block projects. (Figure 3) Many municipalities do carry out early strategic planning processes for renewable energy before specific projects are considered, but Frantzen says people are often not aware that these processes are under way. “Often citizens only become aware of energy planning in their municipality when things become very concrete,” he says. “But once a very concrete project has been announced, you can’t change a lot due to the nature of planning law.”
Community engagement
There is a high degree of consensus in the literature that community engagement should begin at an earlier stage than is currently the case, giving local people more time to make suggestions. However, there is
CO-GREEN
Co-Green Controversies in the green transition: The case of wind turbine sound and its politicisation
Project Objectives
The project investigates the many different ways in which wind turbine sound is understood and the various types of expertise that try to explain it. We use this deeper understanding of sound to examine how sound from wind turbines is often politicized and problematized in wind power deployment and sometimes leads to controversy and delayed projects. On the basis of experimenting with innovative ways of communicating and ‘co-creating’ a common understanding of wind turbine “soundscapes”, the project creates fertile ground for a better involvement of citizens in the green transition.
Project Funding
This project is funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark DFF.
Project Partners
Tom Cronin and Sophie Nyborg, DTU Wind and Energy Systems
Contact Details
Julia Kirch Kirkegaard Professor Department of Technology, Management and Economics, Akademivej, Building 358 DK-2800 Kgs. Lyngby
Denmark
T: +45 93511431
E: jukk@dtu.dk
W: https://wind.dtu.dk/projects/researchprojects/co-green
Julia Kirch Kirkegaard is a Professor in the Center for Human-Centered Innovation, at the Danish Technical University (DTU). Her PhD is from Copenhagen Business School, and she specialises in valuation studies, within the field of Science & Technology studies.
Daniel Nordstrand Frantzen is a sociologist. He recently submitted his PhD thesis at the Department of Wind and Energy Systems, DTU. In this he explores ‘valuation struggles and compromises’ regarding wind energy in Denmark.
not a lot of agreement on how to conduct community engagement, another topic that researchers are exploring in the project. “We want to experiment with the notion of co-creation. We plan to hold co-creation workshops for an energy community. This is about community-based energy, where people can co-own and use their own system, then integrate it into the broader electricity grid,” says Professor Kirkegaard. Community-owned companies may be more likely to garner local support, but it’s also important to consider the wider picture, with climate concerns, the biodiversity crisis and conflict in Ukraine all increasing pressure to speed up development. “The issue is how to develop wind farms quickly,” says Frantzen.
The wind sector is likely to remain a major part of Denmark’s energy mix well into the future, yet more effective consultation between experts and local communities is central to maintaining public support. This is not simply a question of providing numbers and graphs on how noisy wind turbines are, as that doesn’t capture the reality of their impact. “We’ve seen in the past that the ‘technified’ strategy of letting science and technology give us the numbers doesn’t really end the controversy over wind turbine noise,” stresses Professor Kirkegaard. The hope is to find collaborative ways to discuss differences and identify compromises in the ongoing development of the wind energy sector. “There are plans for energy islands in the North Sea and around the Baltic. These will be huge facilities, with offshore hubs to connect multiple wind farms, enabling the distribution of very large amounts of
electricity over very long distances, first to Germany, and potentially also to Sweden and Poland,” says Professor Kirkegaard. There is also potential for any excess wind energy to be used to mitigate the environmental impact of hard-to-abate sectors, like aviation, public transport and agriculture. Excess wind energy can be converted, so it is stored in hydrogen molecules and other types of fuels through Power-to-X technologies, which opens up new possibilities. “These fuels can then be used in heavy transport vehicles. This means we can now put even more value on wind power, because the excess wind power can now be put to use in other ways,” explains Professor Kirkegaard. While this would seem to strengthen the case for further development of wind energy, Professor Kirkegaard says it is important to consult with affected communities and take local concerns into account. “Energy companies need to be mindful of local concerns and navigate carefully,” she acknowledges. “That’s something that we are contributing to through our work in the project.”
This could help build local support for wind farms at an early stage in development and prevent problems later on. Where people feel they haven’t been consulted, they may move to outright opposition, and seek ways of stopping a development, a situation researchers hope to prevent. “If we can get more people involved in figuring out what kinds of solutions we should have and where should they be placed, then we would probably have fewer of these big local conflicts, where projects are delayed for many years or even cancelled completely,” says Frantzen.
“ We refer to this governance mode of the energy transition as ‘technification’”