📋 Tender Overview
At the commission of the Ministry of Climate and with the support of the European Union funding, a guide has been completed to help harmonize the environmental impact assessments of wind farms. The guide focuses on four important influences - the spread of noise in the ambient air, low frequency sound, including infrasound, vibration and shading. The guide provides support guidelines for environmental impact assessment experts, local governments and planners to ensure a more uniform approach to evaluating the impact of wind farms and implementing current regulations.
The more transparent and harmonized assessment of the environmental impacts accelerates and facilitates the planning and implementation of renewable energy projects. With the help of common guidelines, we can ensure that all parties better understand the effects of sound, vibration and shading near the wind farms, and what measures can be taken to alleviate them, said Rein Vaks, Head of the Energy Department of the Ministry of Climate. It is important for communities to evaluate the environmental impact of wind farms fair, uniform and understandable. This guide creates better prerequisites for open discussion, as it highlights certain criteria and evaluation methods that can be made to make conscious decisions. It is also easier for people to compare different analyzes and their results, said Antti Tooming, Undersecretary for Biodiversity and Environmental Protection.
The guide provides methodological recommendations to be based on influence assessments, and also collects information on the possibilities of relief and monitoring measures. The guidelines will not replace the impact assessment for each project on site, but will help experts in assessing the impact of specific projects.
The guide was based on the experience and regulations of both national and other European countries and taken into account the data provided in the scientific literature. In addition to the guide, a comprehensive overview of foreign countries, more specifically Denmark, Finland, Germany, Latvia and Lithuania, prepared the aforementioned in the four fields of influence - the spread of noise in the ambient air, low frequency sound, including infrasound, vibration and shading. The overview confirmed that Estonias environmental impact assessments are already based on more experienced foreign practices and good practices, such as the treatment and assessment of Estonian infrastructure is similar to countries with long -term experience in developing wind energy. The guide can be consulted by the Ministry of Climate. The analysis and guide have been funded by the European Union recovery and endurance funding Nextgenerationeu.
