An assessment of wind farms' electromagnetic impact for the aerodrome

As a source of clean energy wind power has attracted great interests around the world. However, recent research revealed that wind farms may interfere with surveillance and navigation instruments in aerodromes such as radar, radio navigation instrument, etc because of wind farms' reflection, scattering and shadowing to the electromagnetic wave. Therefore, wind farms may further threaten aviation safety. Around a new aerodrome in the construction in the east of China, there are several wind farms nearby. Our laboratory was assigned to assess the impact of wind farms nearby on this new aerodrome. This paper presents our assessment scheme and particular methods for this actual case. The electronic equipments which may be interfered with by wind farms in the assessed aerodrome include SSR (secondary surveillance radar), VOR (VHF omnidirectional radio range) and ILS (instrument landing system). We assessed the wind farms' impact on these equipments separately. The assessment procedure includes four steps: geographic position relationship assessment, zone partition assessment, visibility assessment and detailed engineering assessment. The wind farm we assessed is only 4–11 kilometers away from the base point of the runway of the new aerodrome. There are 32 wind turbines whose height is over 100 meters in this nearest wind farm. All wind turbines distribute on a hill not far from the aerodrome. Fortunately, this wind farm is not on the direction of the runway, but on the side of the runway. Some assessment results are given in the paper. The assessment scheme presented in the paper is valuable for site selection of aerodromes, surveillance and navigation electronic equipments and wind farms. It also could give reference for type selection of electronic equipments of the aerodrome in the construction.