Concept for collaborative design of wind farms facilitated by an interactive GIS-based visual-acoustic 3D simulation

Abstract

Planning of wind farms appears to be a complicated matter in Switzerland and all over\nEurope, causing growing government and business frustration. The implementation often\nfails on the local level when it comes to choosing a suitable location for a wind farm,\nalthough the public generally supports wind power (D<small>EVINE</small>-W<small>RIGHT</small> 2005, W<small>OLSINK</small>,\n2005). Social acceptance is a key issue for successful wind energy market development.\nThe choice of the location is most crucial for public stakeholders and there is growing\nawareness amongst policy makers that not only the physical characteristics of a wind farm\nbut also the process of planning a wind farm is an important factor influencing public\nacceptability (D<small>EVINE</small>-W<small>RIGHT</small> 2005). However, 75 % of all stakeholders in Switzerland\nstate that there is a lack of planning instruments to improve or support social acceptance\n(BFE 2009). Thus, participatory wind power planning needs adequate new instruments.<br/><br/>\nThis paper presents the concept and preliminary results of the development of a visual-acoustic\nsimulation integrating realistic acoustic soundscape modeling into GIS-based 3D\nlandscape visualizations. Movie and sound recordings were generated for a reference site of\nan existing wind farm at the Mont Crosin (Canton Berne, CH) as basis for validating the\nvisual and the acoustic simulation. A first interactive GIS-based 3D visualization with high\nlevel of detail was generated using a game engine, offering sophisticated tools for\nanimating 3D objects or realistic representation of lights and shades. This 3D visualization\nwill be further developed to a prototype of an audio-visual reproduction system. Then,\nvisual-acoustic simulation models for specific areas with different landscape characteristics\nwill be established and used in virtual reality choice experiments for valuation of alternative\nwind farm scenarios. The final simulation tool will allow for an improved impact\nassessment in strong collaboration with the public, which provides a better, more\ncomprehensible decision basis for designating suitable locations for wind farms.