A roadmap for required technological advancements to further reduce onshore wind turbine noise impact on the environment

The noise emission of wind turbines and farms can be an important and limiting factor for future cost reductions and growth of wind energy. Closing scientific and technological gaps on wind turbine noise is thus directly supporting the further development of renewable energy while reducing adverse reactions toward wind farms. The present article is providing guidance on the most relevant research directions from an engineering perspective, namely: simulation methods, wind tunnel testing, and wind turbine design. Each topic is addressed separately and specific scientific challenges are identified. Future research directions that may improve our physical understanding of wind turbine noise, as well as facilitate the deployment of wind energy, are outlined. It is concluded that future scientific research on the topic of wind turbine noise should be conducted in a multidisciplinary context to maximize its impact. The suggested topics shall be seen as a collection of what is seen as the most relevant topics across research and product development but shall not be seen as exclusive or interlinked with specific development plans. This article is categorized under: Sustainable Energy > Wind Energy Human and Social Dimensions > Social Acceptance The mitigation of wind turbine noise requires increasingly advanced technologies to further reduce wind energy environmental impact. High‐fidelity numerical methods (as illustrated above with the visualization of the instantaneous sound field around a blade computed by a Computational Aero‐Acoustic software [left] and propagated to the ground around a 3‐bladed turbine [right]—Source: DLR) progressively become affordable tools for designing wind turbines. However, there exists also a need for acoustic wind tunnel experiments with increased measuring requirements in order to validate numerical models and new design concepts.