Rural residents close to a proposed wind farm in Caithness will face “unacceptable” levels of shadow flicker if the development goes ahead . Campaign group Scotland Against Spin says shadow flicker – a visual effect caused when rotating turbines cut through sunlight – should not exceed 30 hours a year.
However, research carried out by a retired engineer who lives near the Olrig Mains Wind Farm site indicates that some properties could experience over 100 hours of the phenomenon and, “in the worst case”, over 180 hours.
Renewable energy company Green Switch Capital announced this month that it was lowering the maximum tip height of the four turbines from 200m to 180m following environmental assessments and feedback from the community.
It insists the Olrig scheme “has been designed to minimise potential effects of shadow flicker through careful turbine placement”.
Scotland Against Spin spokesperson Aileen Jackson, who lives in East Renfrewshire, said: “The standard planning benchmark used across the UK is that shadow flicker from wind turbines at neighbouring dwellings should not exceed 30 minutes per day or 30 hours per year, so this level of flicker is unacceptable.
“While the general rule of thumb suggests shadow flicker is only an issue within 10 rotor diameters of a turbine, evidence proves this is inadequate. Scotland Against Spin has received numerous complaints over the years of flicker well beyond this threshold.
“Personally, I have experienced severe flicker from turbines with a 90m rotor diameter at a distance of 1 km.
“We were advised by environmental health to make videos and keep a diary for a year. This proved that it breached the 30 hours a year guidance and the operator agreed to apply a software fix to shut down the turbines any time flicker occurred, i.e. on clear winter days when the sun was low in the sky.
“But we were very fortunate as often environmental health officers are reluctant to intervene, and operators are unwilling to apply software fixes due to the financial impact of forced downtime.
“We also have problems with flicker at night caused by the blades passing in front of the turbine aviation lights. There is nothing that can be done about this and our environmental health officer told us it was not a statutory nuisance because the frequency was not fast enough to induce an epileptic fit. He advised us to buy blackout curtains!” https://www.johnogroat-journal.co.uk/news/campaign-group-says-shadow-flicker-from-olrig-turbines-will-446251/?fbclid=IwY2xjawUppmFleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBwZG9mAXNydGMGYXBwX2lkEDIyMjAzOTE3ODgyMDA4OTIAAR4IE2EUQ_gu9Cx441EbvJN5aF0lyag6FC96AyPEx6hiXCiTUpQc9IWKxcRZmg_aem_wJIFzdAeKBED2sDCrlJTdw
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