The ocean wave noise masking effect on wind turbine noise audibility

In Denmark and several other countries noise is regulated as absolute levels, hence the audibility of the noise source is not directly handled. In most countries, including Denmark, wind turbines are often set up in rural areas. Denmark is a flat, windy and in general densely populated country, but the rural areas are less populated and has longer distances between dwellings, and so it is easier to comply with the setback distances and noise demands. Coincidently some of the windiest parts of Denmark are also rural areas. In the rural areas some of the common sources of noise is vegetation or waves, which masks other environmental noise sources. The effect of masking from vegetation and/or waves has not been studied in much detail in Denmark. The aim of this article is to gather meteorological, wave and sound data from waves at the Danish west coast and compare this data to estimated offshore wind turbine noise.