Commercial Wind Turbine Siting Restrictions

[spadlet]

I keep having to reming myself that people on here live in different countries with different rules and regulations. As far as I know, in the UK the following rules have to be observed when siting the large commercial wind turbines:

Obviously you want an economic wind resource.

You need to check if the site has any eccological designation e.g. RAMSAR, SSSI etc. This can prevent the use of a site, unless experts do not feel that the construction, opperation etc of the turbines would affect whatever's being protected.

You need to check if the site has any archeological designation such as given by any Comissions on Ancient Monuments. If there are archeological sites, epert advice willneed ot be taken on whether the wind turbine would have an acceptable impact on the site. You also should check for any indication of bell mines in the area as these don't tend to be registered and can affect the economics due to ensuring they are structurally sound.

You need to consider site access. The blades on wind turbines come in a single piece (per blade) that's relatively fragile, so sharp bends are a prohibitor. The cranes used to errect the turbines are heavy so there may be limits on the steepness of slope you can get your wind turbine up (making some sites inaccessible).

Safety constraints mean that wind turbines cannot be located less than (usually) the hight to the tip of the wind turbine blade when vertical (topple height) plus 10% from any buildings. There isn't a statutory seperation distance from a right of way, but the topple height is usually used. There is no staturoy distance between a wind turbine and a bridle path, though 200m is recomended by the British Horse Society.

There are limits to the noise that the turbines can produce at properties and dwellings 'near' to the wind turbine. This can limit the number and location of wind turbines on a site. Noise levels can be measured after erection and penalties may be imposed if statutory noise levels are exceeded.

Wind turbines cannot be sited in the flight paths around airports, so those areas are excluded. The impact on military sites also has to be considered. Permission has to be gained from the MoD and they can have pretty tight exclusion zones (also, you just have to notify them and let them say no as they need to maintain some secrecy about stuff). Some radar systems are not messed up by wind farms, so radar isn't necessarily a barrier. National Air Traffic also had radar exclusion zones.

MoD tactical training sites may restrict the area in which a wind turbine can be errected.

Electromagnetic Inteference also needs to be considered. In the UK this can be in the form of TV, radio, microwave and mobile phone transmission paths. In some cases this just means that corrective measures need to be imposed (e.g. supplying people with sky if there is only a couple of properties that use the TV transmission). Sometimes an extra transmitter can be installed to take the path around the wind farm. In other cases the transmission path must not be disrupted. Any remedial works usually have to be paid for by the site developer.

Commercial wind farms are always connected to a reasonable load, either the National Grid or some local independant network. Laying cables over large distances can cost alot of money, as can the substation equipment required, so this can be a big ecconomic consideration. For connections to the National Grid you usually have to pay the District Network Opperator to do a feasability study. This looks at the capacity of the grid at the point the wind farm is going to be connected and the ammount of electricity the wind farm is wanting to produce. This can limit the size of the wind farm and may prevent the installation of any wind turbines.

A safe sepperation distance will obviously also be required from any overhead power lines.

Wake effects will also limit the number of turbines that can be sited in any particular area.

Issues of visual amenity are subjective and a few differnet aproaches have been taken by planning policy.

In Wales, TAN 8 is the legislation and the general approach was that there would be areas where wind turbines were encouraged and areas where they were not encouraged, so that some wind turbineless countryside was preserved. In the UK it seems to be more down to the individual comitees and complainants, with a general statement encouraging the planners to offset the objections against the wider benefits.

National Parks are pretty much no go areas in the UK at the moment as far as I'm aware (not I'm talking about large commercial wind turbines, not microgeneration).

This is why I find it hard to understand when people go on about the whole country being swamped with wind turbines.

It would be interesting to know what rules and regulations exist in other countries, to put people's opinions in context.

[kev67]

It's surprising any get built at all.