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TV/radio interference measurements for large
commercially available MW
class wind turbines (September 2007)
Terry Sellner, Andrew Zalay
Abstract—This paper reports on measurements of the
variations of in signal level of radio frequency transmissions
passing through wind generator blades. Measurements were also
made of radio frequency signal reflections from the blades and
radio frequency noise levels near the wind generators.
Index Terms—Measurement, radio frequency attenuation,
wind generator blades, interference.
I. INTRODUCTION
Wind energy is the world’s fastest growing alternative
energy source. However, as new wind turbine generators spin
up, it’s important to note that they may pose an interference
threat to microwave and radio systems and broadcast stations.
An evaluation of the potential impact on microwave and radio
systems and TV reception in the vicinity of a proposed
windmill generating facility can and should be made.
There are three main interference mechanisms.
A. Effect on signal level.
The received signal level for radio and microwave systems
will be affected by blockage of the path by wind turbines. Any
intrusion into the Fresnel zone can degrade the performance
of the system. The basis of radio (including microwave) path
obstruction analysis is to determine where and by how much
the wind turbine blades and support structure would intrude
on the Fresnel Zone of the radio path.
B. Reflections
Wind turbines can reflect some of the signal which can then
arrive at the receiver with a delay depending on the difference
in path lengths of the direct and reflected signals. These
reflections have a potential to cause “ghosting” to analog
television reception, distortion to FM modulated signals and a
reduction in the carrier to noise threshold of digital systems.
The reflections would vary as the blades rotate giving a
pulsating result.
Manuscript received September 14, 2007. This work was supported by
National Power, Australia.
A Zalay is with National Power, Australia. (+61 2 9279 0755; e-mail:
andy@zalay.occoxmail.com)
T Sellner was with Telstra Australia. He is now consultant to National
Power, Sydney (+61 407 332 415; e-mail: tsellner@bigpond.net.au)
978-1-4244-1904-3/08/$25.00 ©2008 IEEE
1
C. Electromagnetic noise.
Electromagnetic noise generated by the wind turbines can
affect reception in the area by reducing the received signal to
noise ratio and possibly resulting in loss of reception.
Calculations of signal levels and reflections (multipathing)
will give results that depend on the particular method and the
software used and, not surprisingly, a worst case scenario is
frequently used.
The effect of the wind turbine blades on electromagnetic
propagation is not well defined. The blades are constructed of
a fibreglass composite (or more recently, carbon fibre) shell
and have an internal metallic lightning conductor. One school
of thought is that at lower frequencies (VHF) the fibreglass in
the blades will be transparent with only the metallic lightning
conductor having any effect. The effective area for a thin wire
is its length times one quarter wavelength at the frequency
concerned. At higher frequencies the blades become be more
reflective. Another school of thought is that the blades are
highly reflective at all frequencies. Yet another variation is
based on reflection from a dielectric material and assumes
reflection of about 33% at all frequencies.
Fibreglass has dielectric coefficient of 4.0 and this will
produce a reflection of about 33% for the air/fibreglass
interface. However there will also be a reflection from the
fibreglass/air interface as the transmitted signal passes
through the fibreglass layer. It is even more complicated
because there will be multiple internal reflections and at each
reflection there will be some transmission and some
reflection. When these multiple reflections and transmissions
are taken into account, it is found that when the thickness of
the dielectric is much less than a quarter wavelength (in the
dielectric), there is a very low reflection and consequently a
high transmission.
When the dielectric is a quarter wavelength thick (or odd
multiple), the reflection becomes a maximum of 36% power.
This occurs at a frequency of 1500 MHz for a fibreglass
thickness of 25mm.
The wind generator blades have an area of about 66 m2.
Table I shows the results for calculations of effective areas for
a single fibreglass sheet 25mm thick of this area and that of
the lightning wire. This demonstrates that at lower
frequencies, reflections from the lightning wire will be
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dominant.. III. TEST SITE

Table I
The wind generator blades basically are an elliptical hollow
shell with two layers of fibreglass separate by a distance
which varies from zero at the edges to about 500mm in the
middle. There will be reflections from both these layers and
when the distance between them is a multiple of a half
wavelength, the reflections will reinforce but will cancel when
the distance is an odd multiple of a quarter wavelength. At
high frequencies there can thus be highly variable
reflection/transmission at different parts of the blade.
The Lake Bonney Wind farm located near Millicent, South
Australia consisting of 46xV66 Vestas 1.75MW wind
generators. The wind generators used for testing have a hub
height of 67m with 33m fibreglass blades.
A 55m cherry picker was used as the transmit platform for
the transmitting equipment and antennas. Although it would
have been preferable to have the transmit platform at hub
height or greater, it was found that this arrangement gave
satisfactory results.
A. Signal Level Variation
The transmitting position was located 300m (except for
2400MHz where the distance was 100m) on one side of a
wind generator (as directly in front as possible) and the
receiving site 1000m on the other side with the actual position
selected to give various clearances from the blade tip. Fig. 1
shows a typical view from the receiving location looking back
to the transmitter on the cherry picker.

II. MT OXLEY PROPOSED WINDFARM

National Power proposes to build a wind generator farm at

Mt Oxley in New South Wales, Australia. There are existing
radio and TV services at this site and concern was expressed
about possible interference to these services. An investigation
into analog TV interference found that there would be
noticeable ghosting if the wind generators were too close to
the TV transmitters.
This investigation was based on calculating reflections
(which would cause ghosting) from the wind generator blades.
Only the blades were considered because reflections from
these would vary as the blades rotated and would be more
visually disturbing than reflections from the wind generator
support columns which would be static.
The TV transmissions are at VHF and the reflection
calculations were based on signal pickup and re-radiation
from the lightning protection wire than runs the length of the
blade.
This investigation did not deal with microwave, 2-way Fig. 1
radio or mobile services and there was also concern on how
these services would be affected by the wind generators. It Measurements were made with the transmit and receive
was decided that to quantify the effects on radio service and antennas oriented at two angles, one in line with the centreline
to check the predicted effects on TV, measurements would be (0) of the blade and the other at right angles (90) when the
made at an existing wind generator farm. blade axis passes through the ray line.
The wind farm at Lake Bonney in South Australia was The transmitted signal was an unmodulated carrier and the
chosen as the test site as it was deemed to be representative of received signal measured on a spectrum analyser set for zero
the commercially available MW Class wind turbines to be frequency span and a trace sweep time of 3 seconds. This
used at Mt Oxley. typically recorded the movement of 3 blades past the ray line.
RF transmission measurements, reflection measurements The measured signal level variations are summarised in Table
and effects on digital TV were made with assistance from II.
Broadcast Australia. Table II – Signal level variations
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Those measurements with an asterisk are not considered
reliable because the signal level was low.
The assumption was made that the main effect on the signal
level would be a reduction in level due to obstruction of part
of the Fresnel Zone by the blade as it crossed or approached
the ray line. It was also considered that at frequencies below
about 500MHz the fibreglass in the blade would be mainly
transparent and only the wire lightning conductor through the
blade would provide the obstruction. The effect caused by the
lightning conductor should depend on the polarisation of the
signal.
However it was observed during some measurements that
there was significant rapid variation in level at times when the
path was midway between the blades. At the time of the blade
crossing the path there was minimal effect on the signal level.
This can be seen in Fig. 2 which is the result for zero
Fresnel clearance at 500MHz with polarisation at right angles
to the blade. Greater variations were found at 900 and 2400
MHz.
3
Fig. 2 – Signal Level, 500MHz
The explanation is that when the path is about midway
between two blades, they both cause disturbances in the
propagation which alternatively add and subtract to give a
rapid variation in signal level on the ray line. This disturbance
is most likely caused by diffraction from the blade as a whole
and/or refraction from the leading and trailing edges of the
blades. When the blades rotate a little more, the rapid
variation reduces as the one blade moves out of the path.
After this there is the attenuating effect of the other blade as it
approaches and crosses the path. The wind generator support
structure would also have some effect in conjunction with the
blades.
The effect is generally more prominent where the signal is
polarised at the right angles setting as the two blades would be
more parallel to the signal polarisation in the midway position.
The disturbances should produce an equal addition and
subtraction to the direct signal which means that the
undisturbed signal level can be taken as being the average
level of the ripples.
The effect should occur at all frequencies but is not
apparent in all the measurements. This appears to be because
the distance from the ray line to the blades needs to be a
minimum of about one Fresnel zone. The effect should also
be greater at higher frequencies where the width of the blade
becomes a number of wavelengths and this creates a more
concentrated refracted beam.
The signal perturbations reduce with increasing Fresnel
zone clearance from the wind turbine blades.
As the turbine blades are quite large compared to the
Fresnel zone, even at 100 MHz, wind generators at greater
distances from the transmitter (or receiver) could still produce
appreciable signal level variation when the signal path is
through the blades.
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Conclusions
100 and 200 MHz
The signal level variations for a path through blades are
relatively small and change slowly, at about 1.5 cycles per
second.
500 MHz
The signal level variations for a path through blades are
more rapid, changing by ± 0.75 dB over a time period of
50ms. A clearance of about two Fresnel zone is suggested if a
clear path is desired.
900 MHz
The signal level variations for a path through blades are
more rapid, changing by ± 2 dB over a time period of around
30ms. A clearance of two or three Fresnel zone is suggested if
a clear path is desired.
2400 MHz
The signal level variations are more rapid, changing by ± 3
dB over a time period of around 20ms.
Transmission through the blades should be avoided but a
clearance of only about 2 Fresnel zone should reduce
variations down to ± 0.2 dB.
B. Reflections
Reflections were determined by transmitting a standard TV
test signal containing a 2T pulse and measuring the reflected
signal (ghost) on a waveform monitor. This measurement
provided both the level and time delay of the reflected signal.
The transmitter is between the receiver and the wind
generator and at a distance of 100m from the wind generator.
The transmit antenna provided an equal signal towards the
reflecting wind generator and to the receiver so that the
measured level of the ghost was a direct indication of the level
of the reflected signal. At VHF a simple dipole antenna
(bidirectional) was used and at UHF, back to back directional
antennas were used.
The result at VHF (216 MHz) is shown here in Fig. 3 for
which the reflection amplitude is about 13% with a delay of
about 0.7µS. It was observed that the reflections changed in
amplitude and shape and this suggests that there was a
secondary reflection from another wind generator.
4
Fig. 3 – Reflection VHF
The level measured here of 13% (-16dB) at a distance of
100m would correspond to a level of -26dB at 300m.
Measurements were also made at 2400 MHz and for this
case there was little variation in the level of the ghost which
suggests that reflection was more from the wind generator
support tower than from the blades. The level at 2400 MHz
was 5% (-26dB) at a distance of 190m and this would
correspond to a level of -30dB at 300m.
Conclusions
The analog TV services interference study for Mt Oxley
was based on re-radiation from the lightning protection wire
for the calculations of reflections. For the case of a wind
generator being 300m from the transmitter (or receiver),
reflection levels of -30dB were calculated. A level of -30dB is
required to ensure that there are no noticeable ghosts for
analog TV. The measurements here are in agreement with the
calculations.
Reflections can have an affect on digital radio systems as
they could be seen as an interfering signal. There could be an
increase in the bit error rate and a reduction in the C/N
threshold. An interference level of -30dB should have little
effect on performance but should be checked against the
operating specifications.
Broadcast Australia conducted tests with digital TV
transmissions to check if the signal level variations and
reflections would affect the digital receiver performance. It
was found that the digital receiver was able to decode signals
with level variations of 2dB over 100mS and reflections at
about -15dB without error.
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C. RF Noise

Noise measurements were made at a reference location

3km away from the wind generators, besides an operating
wind generator and under the high voltage power line from
the site.
Measurements were made with a spectrum analyser with an
external 35dB gain low noise preamplifier. The RF bandwidth
was set to 10kHz which in conjunction with the noise figure
of the preamplifier equates to an instrument noise power of -
130 dBm. Standard dipole antennas were used to pick up RF
noise and bandpass filters were used to eliminate local
broadcast transmissions.
Measurements were made at 100, 200, 400 and 800 MHz
and in all cases the noise levels were no greater than the
instrument noise.

D. Additional transmission graphs

Fig. 5 – 200 MHz, -0.4 Fresnel, 0

Fig. 4 – 100 MHz, +1 Fresnel, 90

Fig. 6 – 900 MHz, +1.4 Fresnel, 90

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Fig. 7 – 2400MHz, -1 Fresnel, 0

The three large dips should be ignored as they are caused

by a signal generator instability not transmission variation.