Draft National Wind Farm Development Guidelines - July 2010

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3 Wind Farm Specific Issues The specific issues associated with wind farms are related to the size of the wind turbines and the rotation of their large blades. Factors that can magnify these issues are the number of turbines and their geographical spread. It makes sense that two wind turbines will generally have a greater impact than one, but the relationship may not be directly proportional (i.e. double the impact) as the impact will depend on how wind turbines are arranged. The specific issues associated with wind farms are outlined below. Detailed guidance and methodologies for the first six issues have been included in this document as Appendices A-F. The other five issues do not have detailed methodologies because the solution is relatively simple or is covered well in other planning processes and documents. 3.1 Community and stakeholder consultation Early community consultation and establishing an ongoing commitment to provide information and ensuring opportunities for input is a critical process in the successful development of wind farms. The issue To produce the maximum possible electricity, and therefore greenhouse gas abatement, wind farms need to be located in areas that have a regular, strong and consistent wind resource. The location, assessment and development of potential wind farm sites is a long and highly technical process which is detailed in the following section. During the early stages of investigating a site, developers are unable to confirm with any certainty whether or not a wind farm could be built at or near that location or the number of turbines and layout. In many instances the final layout and number of turbines may not be resolved until after the final approval has been granted by the relevant authority. Guidance notes Best-practice development requires the proponent to understand community concerns, and to ensure that such concerns are considered in the design and development of the wind farm project as far as possible. However, there are also limitations to the extent to which all community expectations can be satisfied and ultimately it may be a matter for the relevant authority to determine where the balance of public interest lies. Appendix A provides the proponent with best-practice guidance on: • preparing communication and consultation plans and making an early commitment to community participation. • a methodology for planning and delivering community participation activities associated with the various stages of a wind farm’s development. This involves a risk management approach i.e. the amount of community participation activities is commensurate with the level of community concern. • managing community input into the assessment and management of key technical study areas — noise, landscape and visual impacts, birds and bats, shadow flicker and electromagnetic interference. Detailed guidance on consultation and stakeholder communications for specific issues is provided in the individual technical appendices. Section 4 provides an overview of the development process, which includes a summary of consultation requirements for each stage. Page 8 Draft National Wind Farm Development Guidelines – 2 July 2010
3.2 Wind Turbine Noise The issue Excessive noise may cause annoyance, disturbance of activities such as watching TV, or sleep disturbance when received at a noise-sensitive location such as a dwelling. At higher levels, environmental noise has been linked to long term health issues such as raised blood pressure and cardiovascular disease. The noise produced by wind turbines comes from their internal operation and as the turbine blades pass through the air. The noise level diminishes with distance from the wind farm; noise levels at a particular receiving location will be determined by factors such as the number of turbines operating and the wind speed and direction. Noise emissions from a wind farm development therefore need to be assessed and managed to ensure that sleep is not disturbed, and to avoid unreasonable impacts on wellbeing and unreasonable interference with normal domestic activities. A unique characteristic of wind turbines is that their noise emission increases with increasing wind speed; therefore the increase in noise from turbines is often, but not always, accompanied by an increase in the background noise environment. A large component of this additional background noise is generated from wind blowing past or through objects, such as trees or buildings. As a result, the background noise near a dwelling may be high enough to ‘mask’ the sound of the turbines. This feature of wind farm developments has been accounted for in the assessment methodology within these Guidelines. Some industrial noise emissions contain characteristics that may make the noise more annoying: tonality (humming, whining), modulation (regular variation in noise level or pitch) and impulsiveness (hammering, banging). For wind farm noise, these characteristics may generally be eliminated by design or operational management. However, the Guidelines address their assessment and management. There have also been concerns raised about possible health impacts associated with low frequency noise (rumbling, thumping) and infrasound (noise below the normal frequency range of human hearing) from wind farms. Low frequency noise and infrasound levels generated by wind farms are normally at levels that are well below the uppermost levels required to cause any health effects. As a result, these Guidelines do not require specific assessment of low frequency noise and infrasound, but do present guidance on their assessment in response to complaints. The Guidelines also recognise the potential for cumulative noise impacts should a new wind farm or an extension to an existing wind farm be proposed in close proximity to the existing wind farm. Guidance notes These Guidelines are intended to provide an effective way to assess and manage noise impacts from proposed wind farm developments, consistent with current environmental legislation. This will be achieved by addressing noise issues in three key ways within Appendix B, namely: • By recognising the methods of Australian Standard 4959-2010 Acoustics – Measurement, prediction and assessment of noise from wind turbine generators. • By providing supplementary guidance on, and technical methodologies for assessing issues that are not contained within the Australian Standard but which are still relevant to wind farm noise emissions. • By including guidance on community consultation. Draft National Wind Farm Development Guidelines – 2 July 2010 Page 9
Page 1: EPHC National Wind Farm Development
Page 5: Acknowledgements These Guidelines h
Page 8 and 9: A.6.1 Site selection 28 A.6.2 Proje
Page 10 and 11: E.7 Technical discussion of key con
Page 12 and 13: The 20/20 target is challenging; ho
Page 14 and 15: Table 1-1 Elements of a ‘wind far
Page 16 and 17: 2 Principles for responsible wind f
Page 20 and 21: Specific noise limits are not provi
Page 22 and 23: 3.5 Shadow flicker The issue Shadow
Page 24 and 25: Guidance notes Heritage issues are
Page 26 and 27: Table 4-1 Typical decision process
Page 28 and 29: The studies and community consultat
Page 31 and 32: A Community and Stakeholder Consult
Page 33 and 34: • Responsive There is a comm
Page 35 and 36: Figure A-1 IAP2 Public Participatio
Page 37 and 38: Specific components which should be
Page 39 and 40: Figure A-2 Example of Good Practice
Page 41 and 42: Recording the occurrence and outcom
Page 43 and 44: A.6.6 Decommissioning Planning & Co
Page 45 and 46: Potential Stakeholders Consultation
Page 47 and 48: B Noise B.1 Introduction This Appen
Page 49 and 50: the converse. These Guidelines reco
Page 51 and 52: The Standard should form the basis
Page 53 and 54: Stage and methodology Construction
Page 55 and 56: Other noise-sensitive uses such as
Page 57 and 58: Table B-2 Existing state and territ
Page 59 and 60: Establish background noise monitori
Page 61 and 62: As noted in Section 6.3.1 of AS4959
Page 63 and 64: predicted levels are significantly
Page 65 and 66: Prepare expert evidence (as require
Page 67 and 68: Undertake unattended monitoring to
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assessment of wind farm noise emiss
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B.4.5 Decommissioning Noise-related
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If a significant amount of time has
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B.7 Technical discussion of key con
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The HGC Engineering report 10 also
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C Landscape C.1 Introduction This A
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• Cumulative impacts “Cumulativ
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C.2 Overview of Methodologies Figur
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C.3 Task Methodologies C.3.1 Projec
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• State Relevant State herita
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The preliminary landscape character
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• Identifying and describing (in
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Advanced photomontages should also
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C.4.2 Visual Impact Assessment The
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C.4.2.4 Assessment of cumulative im
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the implementation of agreed change
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Figure C-2 IBRA mapping of Australi
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Table C-4 Mapping of landscape char
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C.7.2 Levels of significance What a
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Consider ‘Supporting Evidence’
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information available for other sit
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Figure C-4 Example of viewshed mapp
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Figure C-6 Example of photomontages
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communicate broad-scale ideas and p
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Table C-5 Mapping other wind farms
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C.7.9 Glossary & acronyms Australia
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Viewpoint The point from which a vi
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D.1.2 Underlying approach The under
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All of the above is generally appli
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the operational wind farm is aimed
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D.4 Task methodologies D.4.1 Site S
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area as it was not collected accord
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used throughout these Guidelines as
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wind farms. Such data from existing
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considered acceptable, undesirable,
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construction phase are identified d
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Searches for dead birds and bats ar
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D.5 Cumulative impacts D.5.1 Defini
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in the absence of any turbine colli
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that it was first observed. Where m
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e the case that assessment for bats
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Department of Primary Industries, W
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Percival, S.M. 2003, Birds and wind
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E Shadow Flicker E.1 Introduction T
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• The use of recreational facilit
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• The method is inherently linked
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Table E-1 Recommended exposure limi
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E.4.4 Construction Assessment of th
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E.7 Technical discussion of key con
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Figure E-4 Variation in shading wit
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common practice varies between one
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as the actual limit, rather than th
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likely to be obstructed. Radiocommu
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Licensed radiocommunications servic
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Figure F-1 EMI mitigation methodolo
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F.4 Task methodologies F.4.1 Projec
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Expected timeframe for evaluation r
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The near field zone can be calculat
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Develop mitigation strategy As a st
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aseline RF survey which involves th
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G Wind Farm Development Process G.1
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Project Sub-stages Activities to be
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Preliminary Technical Studies Issue
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Planning application (PA2) The plan
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Develop mitigation strategy Finalis
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Environmental Management Plans Issu
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Monitoring: confirmation (O3) Confi
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Decommissioning (D2) Once a decisio
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Draft National Wind Farm Development Guidelines - July 2010

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