Wind Farm Assessment Factors

Aviation Projects is an award-winning and wholly Australian-owned consultancy which specialises in the safe, secure, efficient and sustainable planning, management and operation of aviation and aerospace facilities. This includes the assessment of wind and solar farm (built environment) impacts on aviation activities.

Our team each have significant operational experience in many sectors across the aviation industry from civil and military flying operations, air traffic services operations, regulatory oversight and aviation risk assessments which enables a comprehensive assessment of all the factors related to aviation safeguarding.

One of our major activities involves the assessment of any potential adverse impact of wind farm development proposals on aviation activity throughout Australia. These Aeronautical Impact Assessments (AIA) provide the wind farm developer with detailed information regarding:

• Identification of aerodromes (certified and non-certified) in the vicinity of the wind farm to ensure protection of aerodrome airspace and aircraft operations during take-off and landing
• The identification and assessment of:
  • instrument approach procedure protection surfaces above the wind farm boundary (PANS-OPS)
  • air route Lowest Safe Altitudes (LSALT) and Grid LSALT above the wind farm
  • ATC radar facilities which the wind farm may have an adverse impact upon the use of the radar facility.

Inevitably, where some infringements of aerodrome airspace are identified, a detailed risk assessment in accordance with CASA guidelines is worked through to determine the extent of the infringement and potential mitigations to reduce the risk to an acceptable level. 

The accompanying image illustrates an airport's Obstacle Limitation Surface (OLS). In this case infridgements are by terrain, however technical analysis such as this enables calculations of possible obstacle placements to ensure integrity of the OLS is maintained. Aviation Projects specialises in detailed analysis transposed into a readable and coherent report which ensures our clients receive accurate information upon which to base their development decisions upon. (Source of illustration: Aviation Projects)  

There are many regulatory factors to consider as well as industry and individual state guidelines which need to be referenced when providing accurate wind and solar farm AIA’s. Aviation Projects has years of experience in providing AIAs for major developers. Contact us here for further information.