Northern Centre News
Twenty-five delegates from seven local authorities attended the Northern Centre’s Wind Turbine Training Course on 13 February in Woodhill House, the Aberdeenshire Council headquarters. The course was jointly arranged by Aberdeenshire Council and REHIS Northern Centre.
Delivered by consultants from Hoare Lea Acoustics, the course covered a range of topics including recent research on the amplitude modulated (AM), component of the aerodynamic noise produced by the rotating wind turbine blades in wind turbines. This form of AM, commonly referred to as “blade swish”, is an inherent feature of the operation of all wind turbines. The driver for the research was the observation that, on some wind farm sites and under some specific (but unidentified) conditions, the characteristic and inherent blade swish noise could turn into a higher level ‘whoomping’ type sound that was audible at distances from the wind turbines that were considerably greater than the distances at which blade swish could ordinarily be perceived.
This is a subject which is causing a lot of discussion in the north of Scotland and, as you may have seen recently in the press, Aberdeenshire Council served an “ASBO” style notice served on a wind turbine development.
Feedback from the day was very good, with a variety of technical questions being asked on the good practice guide supplementary notes and planning conditions. I would suspect that all delegates found the course to be particularly useful in deciding whether or not to serve “ASBO” notices.
We thank the REHIS Southern Centre for passing across “ready to go” seminars/training events such as this one. Bringing training courses closer to REHIS Northern members is much appreciated all and we will return the favour.
Some members were chasing up CPD certificate for Northern Centre events and if any are still outstanding would they please contact the Northern Centre via the REHIS website. It will be useful to note that we send copies of all event registers lists to REHIS HQ in Edinburgh so verification of attendance should not present any difficulty.
Our spring seminar is scheduled for Thurs 22 May 2014, again at Woodhill House in Aberdeen, and planning is nearing completion for a fun packed and informative day. Further details will be available soon.
As always, the Northern Centre would welcome any constructive input from the membership, particularly in relation to topics for any future events. Please feel free to send any suggestions or contact the Northern Centre Management Committee via the REHIS website at Contact the Northern Centre
Bob Drummond, Northern Centre Secretary
