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    • Wind Turbine Sound Setbacks and Supply Curves: Ordinances and Extrapolated Trends, 110 Hub Height, 130 Rotor Diameter

    Metadata Updated: February 7, 2025

    This dataset provides a comprehensive set of wind turbine sound setbacks from every residential structure in the contiguous United States (CONUS). A sound setback is defined as the minimum required distance between a residential structure and a hypothetical turbine installation site to ensure that modeled sound levels received at the residence do not exceed local sound ordinances, which are commonly expressed in A-weighted decibels (dBA). Therefore, sound setbacks are a local spatial assessment combining multiple factors, including the sound pressure curve as a function of the observer location (distance and direction) relative to the turbine, local sound regulations, and the geographical distribution of residential structures. The dataset is organized into multiple scenario-based products, detailed as follows:

    1. Existing and extrapolated sound setbacks. An existing scenario characterizes sound setbacks only in states or counties that have implemented sound regulations as of 2022. The extrapolated scenarios extend a constant sound threshold to counties that lack explicit sound regulations, with thresholds ranging from 35 to 60 dBA, in 5-dBA increments reflecting the variation observed in current sound ordinances.

    2. Sound setbacks in directional and worst scenarios. The directional scenario accounts for the distance and orientation of residential structures relative to a hypothetical turbine location, utilizing the turbine's sound emissions in that specific direction. In contrast, the worst scenario takes loudest sound level at each distance step from the turbine, irrespective of directional considerations, which aligns with current industry practice.

    3. Supply curves for Open and Reference Access scenarios. This dataset includes supply curves generated by the reV model, which integrates each of the above sound setbacks into both Open and Reference siting scenarios. In addition, two Open and Reference baselines scenarios were included which do not consider sound setbacks for comparative analysis.

    All sound setback data are stored in TIF files, with partial maps of the data provided in PNG format. The values in the sound setback raster range from 0 to 1, representing the fraction of developable land within a 90 meter by 90 meter pixel due to sound ordinances. A value of 0 indicates areas where wind energy development is prohibited, while a value of 1 signifies areas fully permissible. The wind turbine parameters used in the sound modeling are based on the land-based turbine from International Energy Agency (IEA), featuring a rated electrical power of 3.4 MW, a rotor diameter of 130 meters, and a hub height of 110 meters. The atmospheric conditions, including wind speed/direction, turbulence, air temperature, relative humidity, and air pressure, that drive the sound generation are obtained from the WIND Toolkit dataset.

    Access & Use Information

    Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: Creative Commons Attribution

    Downloads & Resources

    Dates

    Metadata Created Date January 15, 2025
    Metadata Updated Date February 7, 2025

    Metadata Source

    Harvested from OpenEI data.json

    Other Data Resources

    Additional Metadata

    Resource Type Dataset
    Metadata Created Date January 15, 2025
    Metadata Updated Date February 7, 2025
    Publisher National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)
    Maintainer
    Doi 10.25984/2511387
    Identifier https://data.openei.org/submissions/6457
    Data First Published 2025-01-01T07:00:00Z
    Data Last Modified 2025-02-07T16:48:16Z
    Public Access Level public
    Bureau Code 019:20
    Metadata Context https://openei.org/data.json
    Metadata Catalog ID https://openei.org/data.json
    Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
    Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
    Data Quality True
    Harvest Object Id 56100065-6312-4c46-92a7-9e66ba3b7390
    Harvest Source Id 7cbf9085-0290-4e9f-bec1-91653baeddfd
    Harvest Source Title OpenEI data.json
    Homepage URL https://data.openei.org/submissions/6457
    License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
    Old Spatial {"type":"Polygon","coordinates":-125.4514,24.5873,-66.5318,24.5873,-66.5318,49.2637,-125.4514,49.2637,-125.4514,24.5873}
    Program Code 019:000, 019:010
    Projectnumber 10348
    Projecttitle Spatial Analysis for Wind Technology Development
    Source Datajson Identifier True
    Source Hash f9b83c422d6e46455112d271dc399972d94e883d7336883d6c8d3442d8bfd0fc
    Source Schema Version 1.1
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