How Effect Are Wind Farms?

Scientists have measured the climatic effect of a wind farm on the local government.

18:27 26 April 2016

A team of researchers has conducted the very first study about the climatic effect of a wind farms. The study, which was published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, showed that there was a very slight warning at ground level and that it was localised within a wind farm’s perimeter.

 

Co-author Stephen Mobbs, director of the National Centre for Atmospheric Science, explained: "For a long time there have been some concerns about what effects wind farms could have on the local climate and the land surface,"

 

"To be honest, it was mostly speculation with nothing very concrete. We set out to actually measure what was going on."

 

He added: "We had a fantastic opportunity when [the operators] turned the wind farm off for several months for some major maintenance," he explained.

"What we were able to do, which had not been possible before, is to compare the effects with and without the turbines rotating."

 

"For the first time, we have been able to detect a climatic effect - there definitely is one.

 

"Although we have been able to do a very careful experiment and detect the effect, we are now able to show - in a way that could not be done before - that this effect is very small," he added.

 

"Even in the most extreme conditions, the warming was no more than about a fifth of a degree Celsius in temperature.

"Because we have been able to definitively detect the effect, we can also definitively say that the effect is extremely small and it is not something people should be worried about."