NZS 6808 is the New Zealand Standard that recommends limits on noise from wind farms. The 2010 edition replaces the earlier edition published in 1998.
Watch An Introduction the New Zealand Wind Farm Noise Standard
About the Standard
NZS 6808:2010 provides suitable methods for the prediction, measurement and assessment of sound from wind farms that takes into account the factors that are specific to that sound. It also recommends limits on the level of sound that can be heard from locations near wind farms.
It will be used by wind farm developers, acoustics specialists, councils and others involved in setting and monitoring wind farm noise limits in resource consent conditions.
The noise limits recommended in the Standard are intended to provide protection against sleep disturbance and maintain a reasonable amenity at locations surrounding a wind farm.
People living near a wind farm may still hear the wind farm at times, but if the limits recommended in the Standard are properly applied the level of sound will not be unreasonable or out of place with other sounds in the environment. This approach is consistent with how sound from other sources is managed, such as from ports and airports.
The Standards New Zealand committee that developed the Standard included representatives of local authority and community interests, engineering and scientific experts in acoustics, practitioners in planning, resource management and environmental health and wind farm developers.
The representatives were nominated by:
- Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority
- Executive of Community Boards
- Local Government New Zealand
- Massey University
- Ministry for the Environment
- Ministry of Health
- New Zealand Acoustical Society
- New Zealand Institute of Environmental Health Inc.
- New Zealand Wind Energy Association
- Resource Management Law Association
- University of Auckland.
Find out more:
- NZWEA factsheet on the New Zealand Wind Farm Noise Standard
- Standards New Zealand website
- NZS 6808:2010 Acoustics – Wind farm noise, Dr Stephen Chiles, NZ Acoustics, Vol 23 No 2. Published by the New Zealand Acoustical Society.