Controversies in the green transition: The case of wind turbine sound and its politicisation

The green transition to renewable energy offers great societal opportunities and challenges. These are most often seen from a technical perspective. Thus, the challenge of combatting climate change is often regarded as something where technological solutions must be developed based on techno-scientific practices, such that everything can be measured and quantified. An approach to the green transition like this risks putting the means (technology) before the goal (the green transition) and ignoring some of the more intangible aspects and concerns. The result is often local opposition and controversy. In this project, we use the sound from wind turbines, which is commonly referred to as problematic 'wind turbine noise', as an exemplary case to examine how a technical understanding of sound ignores all the aspects that cannot be measured, but which nonetheless creates uncertainty and controversy. The project investigates the many different ways in which wind turbine sound is understood and the various types of expertise that try to explain it. We use this deeper understanding of sound to examine how sound from wind turbines is often politicized and problematized in wind power deployment and sometimes leads to controversy and delayed projects. On the basis experimenting with innovative ways of communicating and ‘co-creating’ a common understanding of wind turbine “soundscapes”, the project creates fertile ground for a better involvement of citizens in the green transition.