DOE has signed on to two interagency agreements to continue to collaborate on and reduce potential impacts from wind turbines on radar systems used for air traffic control, weather forecasting, homeland security, and national defense missions.
Wind Energy Technologies Office
June 15, 2021
minute read time
As wind energy grows to meet the Biden Administration’s goals for a zero-carbon electricity grid, so does the potential for wind turbines to interfere with radar systems involved in air traffic control, weather forecasting, homeland security, and national defense missions. In an effort to reduce these potential impacts and enable broader collaboration on wind-radar interference mitigation among federal agencies, DOE has signed on to two interagency agreements.
In the first agreement, DOE plans to work with the Federal Aviation Administration on R&D to minimize the impacts of wind turbines on air traffic control radars. Wind farms constructed within the line of sight of air traffic control radar systems have been shown to cause clutter and interference.
In the second agreement, DOE and five other federal agencies signed a Memorandum of Agreement to continue collaborative efforts to improve radar mitigation techniques. The 5-year partnership among DOE, the Department of Defense, the Department of Transportation [Federal Aviation Administration], the Department of Commerce [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration], and the Department of Interior [Bureau of Ocean Energy Management] will identify and develop means to mitigate the potential technical and operational effects of land-based and offshore wind projects on critical radar missions.
In addition, DOE supported a recent MIT Lincoln Laboratory study assessing whether changing the turbine spacing in a new wind farm can reduce or prevent the impacts on radar.
For more information on WETO’s radar interference mitigation research, visit our Environmental Impacts and Siting of Wind Projects page.