Evaluating suitability of onshore wind farm in Taiwan from location point of view

Renewable energy is one of the most important global issue. Unlike fossil fuel or nuclear energy, human can get rid of massive carbon dioxide emission and radiation issues with renewable energy. Therefore renewable energy is regarded as a solution on mitigating climate change and nuclear security problem. In Taiwan, renewable energy is the most important alternative and highly encouraged by government because of campaigns against nuclear energy and carbon emission. Among all types of renewable energy, wind energy is the fastest developed one in a decade, and it also expected to fill the power gap after nuclear plants shut down. However, wind turbines are often resist by local community. In this research, we analyzed conditions in constructing wind turbines, mapping out all conditions. With these conditions, we discuss the reason makes domestic wind turbine inappropriate and try to figure out how to improve it. In this research, we use variable factors including annual average wind speed, slope, and other environmental constraints to examine whether the existing wind turbines are appropriate. In terms of wind energy potential, wind turbines in Taiwan have the best domestic wind resource condition, however, the environmental impact is still an important issue to be concerned. According to domestic experience on wind energy development in past decades, low frequency noise between 20 to 200Hz is the most threatening factor among all environmental impact factors. Wind farm owners have to keep these turbines from residence with appropriate distance to avoid noise pollution, and there are also several regulations about the distance standard. However, there are still ¼ wind turbines do not match the distance standard, and measurement results also show some residences are affected by noise. Besides, some turbines located in environmental sensitive area and may cause environmental impact. Several researches implied that there are coastal erosion hot spots in western Taiwan, but in this research we believe these hot spots do not threaten existing wind turbines immediately. In conclusion, noise pollution is the most important issue and we have to take action to mitigate the impact.