Community noise experts George W. Kamperman and Richard R. James provide guidelines for siting industrial wind turbines with a focus on preventing health risks due to sound emissions from the turbines. This document offers important background information that should be read by all those involved in the siting and approving of wind energy facilities. The introduction to the paper is included below. The full document can be accessed by clicking on the link at the bottom of the page.

In October 2006, Palmerston North City Council and Horowhenua District Council received land use consent applications from Motorimu Wind Farm Limited to construct, operate and maintain 129 wind turbines as part of a proposal known as the ‘Motorimu Wind Farm’. In June 2007, consent was granted for 75 of the proposed turbines to be constructed with consent declined for the remaining 52 turbines. Motorimu appealed the decision arguing it needed all 129 turbines for the project to be viable. This month the Environmental Count granted Motorium permission to erect up to 80 turbines. Dr. Dave Bennett's testimony was entered into the record before the Environment Court.

Richard R. James' testimony before the Wellington City Council in regard to modeled noise predictions for a Meridian Energy Ltd. wind energy facility.

Cavanaugh Tocci Associates (CTA) was hired by the Town of Clayton NY to review the noise analysis prepared by Iberdrola/PPM for the Clayton wind farm project. CTA's report was delivered to the town on February 15, 2008 but refused by the Town Board with objections that the report was too technical. CTA was asked to prepare an executive summary of their report. The executive summary of the report can be accessed by clicking on the link below. To date, the town has refused to release the full CTA report to the residents of Clayton or to the Planning Board.

This paper, prepared by community noise experts George Kamperman and Richard R. James, was presented at the 2008 International Noise Conference held in Dearborn, Michigan. The abstract of the paper appears below. The full body of the report can be accessed by clicking on the link below.

This paper, presented at the Noise-Con 2008 in Dearborn, MI discusses the limitations of Ray-Tracing software in predicting noise levels. Ray-tracing software is used to model noise levels on industrial wind turbines.

Many of the complaints in the UK relating to wind farm noise appear to be due to the amplitude modulation (AM) of the aerodynamic noise from the blades, sometimes referred to as "swish" or "thump". Dick Bowdler explores the existing evidence and summarizes how the totality of what people experience when listening to wind turbine noise is really dependent on operating modes, weather, and even the location of the listener with respect to the turbines and the wind.

Abstract of a paper to be presented before the NOISE-CON 2008 conference Dearborn, Michigan 2008 July 28-31

The Windfarm perception project shows that the sound of wind turbines causes relatively much annoyance. The sound is perceived at relatively low levels and is thought to be more annoying than equally loud air or road traffic. This may be caused by the swishing character of the sound or because at night it does not decrease in strength -which is usually the case for traffic noise. Also in this study more disturbance of sleep occurs at the highest sound levels that occurred in this study. ...In the WINDFARM perception project, supervised by Frits van den Berg, the perception was investigated of modern, tall wind turbines by Dutch residents. The study shows that sound from wind farms is an important disadvantage of wind energy which in itself is positively appreciated by a majority of the participants.