In 2023, the Wind Turbine Radar Interference Mitigation Working Group released an updated strategy to address wind turbines’ interference with critical radar missions, ensuring the long-term resilience of radar operations in the presence of wind turbines.
Wind Energy Technologies Office
October 20, 2023
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As wind development continues to grow and expand to new areas of the country, the probability for wind turbines to present conflicts with radar missions related to air traffic control, weather forecasting, homeland security, and national defense is also likely to increase, as is the potential severity of those conflicts.
In 2016, a consortium of federal agencies including the U.S. Department of Energy, known as the Wind Turbine Radar Interference Mitigation Working Group, released a strategy to address wind turbines’ interference with critical radar missions, ensuring the long-term resilience of radar operations in the presence of wind turbines, and remove radar interference as an impediment to future wind energy development by 2025.
In 2023, the Working Group released an updated strategy reiterating these objectives, focusing on future activities through 2028, including offshore wind development. To achieve the objectives in this updated strategy, the Working Group coordinates activities within three broad strategic themes:
- Improving the capacity of government and industry to evaluate the impacts of existing and planned wind energy installations on sensitive radar systems.
- Developing and facilitating the deployment of hardware and software mitigation measures to increase the resilience of existing radar systems to wind turbines.
- Encouraging the development of next-generation radar systems that are resistant to wind turbine radar interference.