An Updated Wind Turbine Impact Assessment Method Applied to the WSR-88D Network

The pursuit of any energy source presents its own challenges, and wind energy in particular has unique, detrimental impacts on weather radar data. As turbine industry standards evolve and wind turbines increase in height and number, ways to assess their impact must be re-examined and updated. This project compares two assessment methods: 1) an existing method that calculates impacts out to designated ranges based on a standard turbine height, and 2) a proposed method that defines impacts based on the number of elevation angles intersected by the project-specific turbine heights. Information from WSR-88D sites is compared with existing wind farm installations as reported in publicly available data to assess potential data impacts.