Dec 2, 2009

DOE's technical analysis of wind energy facilities' impacts on the property values?

On December 2nd, DOE's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory released a technical analysis of wind energy facilities' impacts on the property values of nearby residences. The research, funded by DOE's Wind and Hydropower Technologies Program, is the most comprehensive and data-rich analysis on the subject to date.
Using a combination of different analytic approaches, the investigation finds no evideHTML clipboardnce that prices of homes surrounding wind facilities are consistently, measurably, and significantly affected by either the view of wind facilities or the distance of the home to those facilities. Though the analysis cannot dismiss the possibility that individual homes or small numbers of homes have been or could be negatively impacted, it finds that if these impacts do exist, their frequency is too small to result in any widespread, statistically observable impact.

The full report, "The Impact of Wind Power Projects on Residential Property Values in the United States: A Multi-Site Hedonic Analysis," is available on the Environmental Impacts and Siting of Wind Projects page.

Full story at from EERE News Alerts

For more information on the DOE's Wind and Hydropower Technologies Program, see the Wind and Hydropower Technologies Program Web site.

My comments:

I have a hard time with this analysis when T.Boone  comments on WindFarms was
 
"There are no turbines on my ranch, because I think they are ugly." Source

Most would agree, and once the idea of "green looking cool" wears off in the media so will the value of surrounding homes...