LBNL Study: Wind Power Projects Do Not Decrease Land Values

California, United States [RenewableEnergyWorld.com]

With more than 30,000 megawatts of wind energy capacity installed across the United States and more on the way, many communities are concerned about the impact of wind farms on the property values. A new report released today by the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) evaluates that concern. The report found that that proximity to wind energy facilities does not have a pervasive or widespread adverse effect on the property values of nearby homes.

The new report, funded by the DOE, is based on site visits, data collection and analysis of almost 7,500 single-family home sales in areas where wind farms have been developed.

“Neither the view of wind energy facilities nor the distance of the home to those facilities was found to have any consistent, measurable, and significant effect on the selling prices of nearby homes,” said report author Ben Hoen, a consultant to Berkeley Lab. “No matter how we looked at the data, the same result kept coming back - no evidence of widespread impacts.”

The data was collected on homes situated within 10 miles of 24 existing wind facilities in nine different U.S. states. Each home in the sample was visited to collect important on-site information such as whether wind turbines were visible from the home.

Link to LBNL Study: http://eetd.lbl.gov/eap/EMP/reports/lbnl-2829e-ppt.pdf