Quantification of noise exposure from wind turbines in France
Résumé
The WHO guidelines on environmental noise highlight that evidence on the health effects of wind turbine noise is either non-existent or of poor quality. In this context, a feasibility study was conducted in France. The objective was to suggest a methodology for calculating wind turbine noise in order to quantify the number of windfarms' residents exposed to different levels of this noise. Based on a literature review, the Harmonoise model was selected for noise exposure calculation. The contribution of a wind farm varies from 35 dB(A) to 45 dB(A) for distances from 500m to 1500m, depending on weather conditions. Compared to other environmental noise sources (e.g. transportation), the noise exposure is very moderate and the total number of exposed people is very low: about 262,000 people during the day and 363,000 people at night, i.e. about 0.4% and 0.5% of the French population in 2017. Nearly 85% of the exposed population is exposed to levels below 40 dB(A). These results are the first ever assessment of noise exposure from wind turbines on the scale of the entire metropolitan French territory.