The construction of wind power plants serves the strategic goals of the country and the region, which include increasing the share of RES in the electric power industry. At the same time, there are so many stipulations/requirements that the project has to meet or depends on, starting with the wind conditions of the area and connectivity, through the distance from the development and, in a way, related to meeting acoustic standards, to minimizing the impact on the flora, fauna and biodiversity of the area. What is the importance of assessing the visual impact of a wind farm in this multi-criteria analysis? The impact of a wind farm on the landscape is unlikely to be a be-or-not for the investment. It is one of the parameters of lower importance but nevertheless has its place. After all, landscape analysis is required by law in environmental impact assessment procedures.
The implementation of an investment such as a wind farm will always affect the landscape through the introduction of height dominants. When analyzing the visual impact, we try to catch the risk of a significant negative impact on the cultural landscape (a fatal error, one might say, in the planned layout), since the protection of cultural heritage is already provided by planning documents. The impact of the wind farm on the landscape may be the prevailing element in favor of any of the variants of the new investment, or it may be important in the repowering analysis. Evaluating the visual impact of the wind farm can be helpful in avoiding social conflicts by, so to speak, taming the local community to the new landscape, which has emotional value for the residents.
We have successfully performed analyses of the impact of WFs on the landscape prior to the 10 H Law and are doing so today. Based on the available guidelines, with our own modifications, we have developed an in-house methodology for assessing the impact of wind farms on the landscape. The assessment process includes, among other things, analysis of available landscape audits, a field visit with acquisition of photographic documentation, simulation calculations of the visibility range of wind turbines made in GIS software, visualizations in the windPRO system and assessment of the strength of visual impact using a graphic editor. With the growing links between energy and artificial intelligence, the question arises as to when some of the mentioned tasks will be taken over by AI. We can reiterate after Microsoft that we are working on using the power of artificial intelligence for sustainable development, gaining knowledge about the environment and taking appropriate action. We keep track of changing technologies, but our approach always remains sound and common sense. An article such as this one can be successfully generated by ChatGPT, while the visualization of a wind farm made by AI leaves much to be desired for now.
