On the Necessity of Assessing Noise Pollution Intensity to Investigate Environmental and Societal Impact

Noise pollution associated with wind turbines results in a significant level of environmental and societal impact. The effect of noise pollution intensity on residential locations varies depending on the surrounding activities. Therefore, wind power generation asset owners should consider the surrounding environment before setting up the wind farm to avoid public inconvenience. Even the demands by regulatory authorities to take noise-level measurements to determine the environmental and societal impact of noise pollution from wind farms do not take into account the low-frequency noise. A study was initiated to collect noise data from wind turbines located in residential areas in Sri Lanka, to investigate the environmental and societal impact. Two wind farms were selected in the north-central region of Sri Lanka, and the study was conducted during the southwest-, northeast-, and inter-monsoon seasons. The variation in daytime and night-time wind turbine noise was studied. The measurements were taken over four consecutive years during the day and at night. According to the findings, when the turbines generated full power the noise generation also increased irrespective of the time of day or night.