To what extent will neighbours be impacted by noise?  

RES takes noise and visual impacts seriously and it is important for us to understand the impacts our projects may have on those that are nearby. We do this through consultation with impacted neighbours and Visual Impact Assessment studies and Noise Impact Assessment studies prepared as part of the Development Application. The assessments have been conducted in accordance with all relevant legislation and assessment guidelines and appropriate mitigation measures (where required) identified.

RES has designed the Project with a minimum 2000 m (2 km) buffer between non-involved dwellings and wind generation turbines.  The operations and maintenance building, battery storage infrastructure, and substation compound are also set back over 1,000 metres from the nearest public road, Mosey Road (at its closest point), as well as the nearest non-involved dwellings.

The assessment of the noise levels of the wind farm has been undertaken and the predicted noise levels achieve the requirements of the Wind Farms Environmental Noise Guidelines 2021 at all residences. Compliance with the SA Guidelines will inherently provide an adequate level of protection of amenity in the surrounding area from noise impacts. The predicted noise levels of the battery energy storage system and substation infrastructure were assessed to achieve the relevant provisions in the current Environment Protection (Commercial and Industrial Noise) Policy.

A final noise assessment will be conducted to confirm compliance with the relevant Guidelines when the final candidate equipment is confirmed. The final noise assessment report will be submitted to the relevant authorities prior to the commencement of construction.

Do larger turbines produce more noise? 

Advancements in turbine design and technology have enabled manufacturers to mitigate noise levels even as turbines increase in size. This is due to improvements in aerodynamics, lower rotation speeds.  

To what extent will neighbours be impacted by visual effects?  

A Visual Impact Assessment (VIA) report has been prepared as part of the Development Application that considers viewpoints surrounding the Project site. The viewpoints selected for the VIA were chosen to be representative of the locality, publicly accessible, and adjacent to areas of private land ownership where a large proportion of the wind farm and associated infrastructure is visible. The assessment identified that the potential visual effect of the Project reduces over distance with the visual assessment recording the visual effect as ‘slight’ at more than ten kilometres. In addition to the VIA report, specific photomontages have been prepared for landowners near the proposed wind farm upon request.

Potential visual impact of wind turbines from viewpoint 1, the southern-most viewpoint considered in the VIA, was assessed as likely to be offset by the existing vegetation and wooded rural landscape character. Visual effect of the Project from distances further than this viewpoint, and into the Barossa Valley, are expected to reduce.