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Abstract

The expansion of wind power is accompanied by a decreasing social acceptance and various land-use conflicts. They are
mainly caused by the large acoustic and the large visual footprint of conventional Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines (HAWTs).
Currently research is carried out on a wind turbine that provides the capability to avoid these negative effects. It refers
to a special type of Vertical Axis Wind Turbines (VAWTs). This wind turbine form hasn’t been at the focus of scientific
or public discussion so far. The overall advantages are its low installation height and its low noise emissions resulting
in a smaller visual and acoustic footprint. Recent research that combined wind energy with bioengineering also showed
that the power density of VAWTs can be higher than the power density of HAWTs. By analyzing the existing literature,
the potential of these wind turbines is explored in this article. Furthermore the sound propagation of these systems will
be examined in more detail on the basis of an emission forecast, as there are few studies on this topic from a regional
planning point of view. The results show that VAWTs provide new land-use options compared to the conventional HAWTs
and could be an alternative wind turbine type within the energy transition.