This text is part of the special issue Climate Issues section
Although the Legault government has promised a major project in this area, wind energy has not always had the wind in its sails. In particular because it was long thought that wind farms Wind turbines required a larger operating area than power plants. However, a recent study conducted by McGill University has shattered this assertion.
Called upon to play an important role in Quebec in the coming years, the wind power sector has been accused of many ills. It has been said that these “modern-day windmills” were harmful to health, that they were too noisy, that they devalued homes or that they decimated birds. Most of these myths have been dismantled by studies over the years. But there was still one crucial point to clarify. Reservations were frequently expressed about the land area required to operate a wind farm, which would be much larger than that intended for power plants powered by fossil fuels.
An innovative calculation method
The picture painted by a new study published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology is quite different. According to the findings of this research led by Sarah Jordaan, associate professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at McGill University, the infrastructure for electricity production, including roads and turbines, only takes up 5% of the total surface area of the wind farm. “Until now, we haven’t really done comprehensive analyses based on objective data to prove exactly what the footprint of wind turbines is on the ground,” explains the author of the study.
“We found that the footprint wasn’t as big as you might think, if you looked at infrastructure,” she says. Previous studies have looked at entire wind farms. Other studies have been too small to provide any conclusive data, leading Jordaan to take a different approach. “We did a big project that spanned the western United States, Mexico, Alberta, and British Columbia,” she says.
In total, the researcher was able to carry out her calculations on nearly 16,000 wind turbines, to conduct the largest study ever conducted on their footprint. A work that was made possible by advances in technology and computer vision (computer vision). “Getting there takes time. We would have had to assess the surface area of each wind turbine, almost on a case-by-case basis,” explains Sarah Jordaan. “So we developed a deep learning model based on data collected by geographic information systems and nearly 2,000 images of wind farms in the western United States.”
Beyond Data
By studying the different energy production systems in parallel on the same portion of territory, the professor and her team have debunked some preconceived ideas. The footprint of wind turbines is thus revealed to be almost identical to that of gas-fired power plants. “There are no major differences if we take into account all the installations necessary for the supply of natural gas, such as wells, gas pipelines and roads,” explains Sarah Jordaan. Will the conclusions of this study be enough to dispel all reservations about the use of wind energy?
“Proving, with data, that wind turbines have a much smaller impact than previously thought is one thing; promoting social acceptance of these same wind turbines is another,” the researcher qualifies. “This can be done through economic opportunities, in particular by finding ways to share land between energy production and agriculture. This can help reduce the footprint of wind turbines, while allowing farmers to keep their land. There are farmers in difficulty who, without the development of new wind projects, would have been forced to give up a large part of their land.”
A method to improve the efficiency of solar panels
This content was produced by the Special Publications Team of Dutyrelevant to marketing. The writing of the Duty did not take part in it.