Energize Weekly, February 7, 2018
The majority of people living within five miles of a windfarm view the projects positively, although attitudes are more polarized among residents within a half-mile of the turbines, according to a survey by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
The survey of 1,700 people found that attitudes were shaped by whether residents believe the siting process had been fair and open, wind power can address climate change and there is an impact on property values, as well as the integration of the project into the landscape and community. The findings are preliminary.
The survey was undertaken to measure public attitudes as wind projects continue to be built and come in closer contact with homes. As more wind farms go up, resident and community attitudes may play a larger role in siting and developing projects.
“Achieving this continued deployment will require coordination and cooperation with the communities and community members in which the wind power projects will be located, including local authorities, citizens, landowners, businesses, and non-governmental organizations,” the study said.
There are 235 wind projects of at least 1.5 megawatts in 24 states. By the end of 2016, installed wind capacity met about 6.2 percent of the nation’s electricity demand from 60,000 turbines, according to the study.
“Roughly 1.4 million households were estimated to be within 5 miles of an existing utility-scale wind turbine as of 2015, and that number would have expected to grow since then,” the study said.
It also said there is evidence that wind projects of more than 60 turbines are on average being built closer to homes. From 2005 to 2015, these projects were getting closer to homes at a rate of approximately 150 feet per year on average.
Still, wind projects tended to draw strong support from those living around them. Overall, 25 percent of the respondents living within five miles of a wind farm held very positive attitudes and 32 percent had positive attitudes toward the facilities, while 34 percent were neutral.
Only 4 percent of the people surveyed were negative about the projects with another 4 percent “very negative.”
The opinions of people living within a half-mile of the nearest turbine were more sharply divided among those who saw the project negatively and those who supported it.
Among these respondents, 13 percent viewed the project very negatively and 12 percent viewed it negatively—triple the rate for the overall all survey group. About 50 percent of the respondents held positive or very positive views. There were fewer people neutral about the turbines.
Among the elements dividing these groups were whether they were being compensated, whether they were bothered by sound, whether they saw it hurting property values.
Still, all in all, the negative responses were a minority.
Among respondents who were not receiving compensation within five miles of a wind farm, 80 percent said that the project had no effect on their property values, and 3 percent said it had a negative effect.
Within a half-mile, 25 percent said they believed the turbines had adversely affected their property, another 14 percent thought it had impacted values, but weren’t sure how, and 56 percent said it had enhanced values or had no effect.
“It is pretty interesting that more than half the people don’t think their property values were affected and they live within a half-mile of the turbines,” Ben Hoen, one of the Berkeley researchers said in a web presentation of the findings.
Hoen stressed that the opinions on property values of the people survey weren’t based on actual sales. “These are perceptions they don’t necessarily know,” he said.
When people living in the half-mile zone were asked to what extent to they were annoyed by the sound of the wind project, 43 percent said not at all, 19 percent slightly, 11 percent moderately and 20 percent very.
For all respondents in the five-mile area, 84 percent said they had not heard a sound.
The survey found some general issues that strongly influenced attitudes. These included whether the planning and siting process was open and transparent; whether the wind facility is well integrated into the landscape and community; and whether they were concerned about climate change.
The survey is part of four-year project funded by the U.S. Department of Energy to collect data from individuals living near wind power projects.
