Environment Module

Many wind farm designs are constrained by local or national regulations that limit the environmental impact.

The WindFarmer Environment module provides the ability to model the impact of noise and shadow flicker at specific locations (receptors) and assess whether limits have been exceeded. The environmental impacts can also be calculated over a spatial grid and displayed on the map. These tools allow visual indications of adherence to planning constraints and provide outputs that are suitable for use both in reports and in the design of curtailment strategies.

The main Environment module features are listed below. More details about using noise and shadow flicker analysis tools can be found in the following user guide sections and the model details the calculation reference.

Environment Module feature summary

Features	Noise	Shadow flicker
Define receptor locations	✔	✔
Define limits at receptors	✔	✔
Define model parameters	✔	✔
Calculate resultant value at receptors	✔	✔
Calculate for different windspeeds	✔	-
Calculate for specific rotor orientation	-	✔
Predict impacts considering wind direction and cloud cover	-	✔ with automation module
Indicate on map where limits are exceeded	✔	✔
Indicate graphically which receptors are under/close to/over limits	✔	-
Calculate and display grid	✔	✔
Export grid	✔	✔
Export contours	✔	✔
export intermediate inputs and results as JSON	✔	-
Export just results tables as TSV	✔	-
Report receptor results summary	✔	✔
Report receptor results breakdown by windspeed	✔	-
Report receptor results breakdown by turbine contribution	✔	✔
Report timeseries results	-	✔
Consider receptor limits as constraint in optimisations	✔	-