Local climatic and environmental effects of an onshore wind farm in North China

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2021.108607Get rights and content

Highlights

  • The impact of wind farms on the local climate is not simply warming and cooling.

  • Air temperature becomes colder and the land surface temperature becomes warmer at night.

  • The significant increase in evapotranspiration may be due to the impact of wind farms.

  • Wind farm has no or negligible effect on vegetation growth both spatially and temporally.

Abstract

To explore the possible local climatic and environmental impacts of an onshore wind farm in North China, meteorological observation and satellite remote sensing data around the wind farm were collected, and the soil chemical composition within and outside of the wind farm was determined. Our analysis revealed changes in the spatial patterns of wind, air temperature (Ta), ground surface temperature (Ts), land surface temperature (LST), evapotranspiration (ET), and the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) from before to after the construction of the wind farm. The two datasets of meteorological observations showed that wind speed decreased after the construction of the wind farm, with one dataset indicating a significant decrease. Since the construction of the farm, Ta and Ts have shown increasing trends, and ET has shown a significant increasing trend. The nighttime Ta and LST showed opposite trends, with Ta decreasing and LST increasing. The change in LST was the greatest at the wind farm and in its downwind zone, indicating that the operation of the wind farm affects the LST within and beyond the 10 km buffer zone. After the wind farm construction, the NDVI showed a significant positive trend. However, increases in the concentrations of Ti and Co were observed, suggesting that the construction and operation of wind farm may promote vegetation growth and cause soil pollution. The monitoring of wind farms needs to be strengthened to reveal the long-term impacts of wind farms on local climates and ecosystems.

Introduction

Wind energy has been recognized as being emission-free, green and sustainable, so it has received national financial support in China (Nazir et al., 2020). Large-scale wind farms are growing rapidly in size and number worldwide. In the past ten years, China has continuously been at the forefront of the global wind energy market, developing approximately 35% of the global installed wind power capacity (Joselin Herbert et al., 2014; Wang et al., 2019; Xu et al., 2019). However, the impacts of the rapid installation of wind turbines on regional climates and ecosystems are not clear. In-depth studies are needed to determine what measures should be considered to mitigate its negative impacts. Wind farms may affect local and global climatic conditions and local ecosystems by changing the vertical distributions of energy and moisture in the atmosphere and the exchanges between the land surface and the atmosphere (Armstrong et al., 2016; Baidya Roy, 2004). If the scale of wind farms continues to expand, will they increasingly impact the local and regional climate and environment? Concern over the impacts of windfarm construction and operation on local climate and ecology is increasing (Baidya Roy and Traiteur, 2010). Paying close attention to the climatic and environmental impacts of wind farms has become important. Many recent studies have investigated the possible impacts of wind farms on local weather and climate, including their potential impacts on air temperature (Ta) (Baidya Roy and Traiteur, 2010), ground temperature (Chang et al., 2016; Wu et al., 2019), wind speed (Zhou et al., 2020), and heat fluxes (Rajewski et al., 2014; Rajewski et al., 2020). The changes in local weather and climate due to wind farms may affect local crop yields (Kaffine, 2019), vegetation growth (Tang et al., 2017; Wu et al., 2019; Xia and Zhou, 2017), soil (Armstrong et al., 2014; Pekkan et al., 2021), and flying animals, including birds, bats and raptors (Cabrera-Cruz et al., 2016; de Lucas et al., 2004). Compared with the changes in regional ecosystems caused by land use/cover (LUC) changes and the local weather disturbances caused by coal use and equivalent power generation, the corresponding impacts of wind farms on climate and ecology are minor (Gibson et al., 2017; Pryor et al., 2020). Although the natural science literature has found evidence of local climatic and environmental changes caused by wind farms, their full impacts remain unclear. Therefore, exploration of the impacts of numerous wind farms on local climates and ecosystems is necessary to allow the sustainable development of wind energy.

In the present study, to evaluate the impacts of large onshore wind farms on local climates and ecosystems, an onshore wind farm in North China was selected as a case study. Before the construction of the wind farm, a meteorological tower was installed at the wind farm location. Two national general weather station datasets were obtained, providing data on wind speed, wind direction, evaporation, Ta and ground surface temperature (Ts). In addition, satellite remote sensing datasets were collected, providing data on land surface temperature (LST), evapotranspiration (ET), and vegetation greenness. Furthermore, the soil chemical composition within and outside of the wind farm was monitored. Then, a comparative analysis was carried out on the changes in the climate and ecosystem before and after the construction of the wind farm. Finally, the climatic and ecosystem differences before and after construction were analyzed, and the impact of the wind farm on the climate and ecosystem was evaluated.

Section snippets

Study area

The wind farm was constructed in Shangyi County, Hebei Province, at the boundary between Inner Mongolia and Hebei Province. This area has a temperate continental monsoon climate. According to local weather data, the annual average Ta is 0.6–6.2 °C, and the annual precipitation is 350–420 mm, which occurs mostly in June-August. This area is affected by the East Asian monsoon, and strong winds occur throughout the year, especially in winter and spring. The annual average number of windy days,

Local climatic change

Shangyi Station is located within the wind farm. From 1981 to 2019, both Ta and Ts showed increasing trends, and the warming trends after construction of the wind farm were stronger than those before construction. Wind speed has been declining for nearly four decades. The annual mean wind speed at the wind farm decreased from 3.52 m/s before construction to 3.02 m/s after, and wind speed showed a significant declining trend after wind-farm construction (P < 0.001) (Fig. 3).

Shangdu Station

Local climate effects of onshore wind farms

Wind farm performance is highly dependent on local climatic conditions, and wind speed changes are one of the main factors used to assess the future economic viability of wind farms. The operation of wind farms reduces greenhouse gas emissions but impacts climate by changing phenomena such as wind speed, wind direction, Ta, LST, and ET (Miller and Keith, 2018). Since the wind farm in the present study is dominated by northwest wind and since Shangdu Station is located 58 km northwest of the

Conclusions

Based on data from an onshore wind farm in North China, the impact of wind farms on the local climate and ecology was analyzed, and the differences in local and regional climate and environmental characteristics caused by seasonal and diurnal climate changes were qualitatively and quantitatively explained. This study provides some evidence that the operation of wind farms can have measurable impacts on wind, Ta, Ts, LST, and ET. We found that after the construction of the studied wind farm, the

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Wenzhi Zhao for valuable feedback on the manuscript. This research was jointly supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFB1502801, 2018YFB1502802), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41877545, 41871065), and CAS “Light of West China” Program.

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    Yanli Zhuang and Lihui Luo contributed equally to this article.

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