Illustration by kind permission of EUROSTAR ©

Many European states have ambitious renewable energy targets for the year 2020. In order to meet these targets, they will have to use renewable, sustainable ways of generating electricity – and wind turbines are useful devices for doing this.

However, wind turbines can potentially have a detrimental impact on the performance of surveillance systems used in air traffic control. A wind farm with many wind turbines could create false targets or lose or corrupt information on an aircraft’s position.

This is still an ongoing concern and EUROCONTROL announced on 20 November that it had recently published an update to its recommended methodology on assessing the potential impact of wind turbine structures on surveillance systems. It also gave suggestions for mitigation options.

How to Assess the Potential Impact of Wind Turbines on Surveillance Sensors

Guidelines reproduced by courtesy of EUROCONTROL.