2 December 2014

3 December 2014

IFRO researchers:

Wind turbines influence house prices

Your house may lose 7-14 per cent in value if the distance to a wind turbine is 800 metres. A new research article puts figures to how much a property’s price may drop when situated close to wind turbines. The examples of how noise from wind turbines, and even the view of them, influences house sales prices are from Denmark.

The authors of the article in the internationally renowned journal Land Economics are three researchers at the Department of Food and Resource Economics, and they describe the outcome of an analysis of more than 10,000 house sales from 2000 to 2011. The analysis is remarkable as it is based on not one, but numerous models and, thus, taking into account a large number of factors influencing the sales price.

“More thoroughly than in earlier studies we have made use of advanced geographical and topological models to study the view to a wind turbine from the house-owner’s perspective. Furthermore, the noise to which a single house will be exposed is meticulously calculated based on gauging the noise from the actual type of turbine,” the main author, Cathrine Ulla Jensen, explains.

The house price fall may be dramatic to the closest neighbours of wind turbines but the analysis also goes into detail of the significance of the distance to turbines. The mere view of a wind turbine means a fall of the house price of 3 per cent and a negative effect of wind turbines in the horizon can be found up to 2.5 km away from the turbine. For every 100 metres the wind turbine gets closer, the price fall is 0.25 per cent. The noise from the turbines means a further price fall of 3 per cent when it lies between 20 and 29 dB, but if the noise reaches 40-50 dB the price fall is nearly 7 per cent.

The results of the study may be used as a tool to estimate effects and as an instrument in the planning of new land-based wind turbines. “The conclusion of our study is not that we should avoid erecting wind turbines but it helps us to consider where to best put them,” postdoc Toke Emil Panduro, a co-author of the article, points out. “Using this study’s results the economic impacts of erecting a wind turbine in a local area can be more reliably assessed. So, planning authorities and wind turbine entrepreneurs will be able to secure that new wind turbines are best placed all things considered,” he says.

The article:

Jensen, Cathrine Ulla; Panduro, Toke Emil & Lundhede, Thomas Hedemark (2014): The vindication of Don Quixote: the impact of noise and visual pollution from wind turbines. Land Economics, vol. 90, no. 4, pp. 668-682.
http://le.uwpress.org/content/90/4/668.abstract

An earlier version of the article can be read in full text in IFRO Working Paper 2013/13.

Contact: