Emerging technology can ease the problem of wind farms causing interference with air-traffic control systems. But deployment of that technology in the U.S. has been slowed by questions over authority and cost.
Since 2006, radar maker Raytheon and National Air Traffic Services, which provides air traffic control in the U.K., have been working on a project to upgrade air traffic radar so it can distinguish between aircraft and wind turbines' spinning blades. Concerns over the disturbances turbines can cause on air traffic control systems are alreadystunting the growth of wind power: radar and wind turbines conflicts derailed nearly as much as the total amount of installed wind power capacity in the U.S. last year.
In the test, due for completion next spring, Raytheon and NATS are seeking to certify a combination of wind turbine mitigation techniques, including upgrading radar hardware and changing signal-processing algorithms.
"When you start putting a set of turbines across an area, what it looks like to the radar is a whole great field of moving objects," said Peter Drake, Raytheon's technical director for Digital Airport Surveillance Radar, the radar system used for airport terminals. "It's a very real problem." LINK
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