51,276 home sales

67 wind facilities

27 counties

9 states

0 effect

The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory recently published a study with a title that doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, “A Spatial Hedonic Analysis of the Effects of Wind Energy Facilities on Surrounding Property Values in the United States”.  The comprehensive study found “no statistical evidence that home prices near wind turbines were affected in either the post-construction or post announcement/ preconstruction periods.” According to the press release, “This study, the most comprehensive to-date, builds on both the previous Berkeley Lab study as well a number of other academic and published U.S. studies, which also generally find no measureable impacts near operating turbines.”

Ben Hoen, the lead author of the new report says “Although there have been claims of significant property value impacts near operating wind turbines that regularly surface in the press or in local communities, strong evidence to support those claims has failed to materialize in all of the major U.S. studies conducted thus far”.

The findings of this study bring to mind a recent Patch article following up on the contentious North Kingstown Green wind turbine.  This 413-foot-tall turbine was installed in a residential subdivision about a year ago.  Some of the neighbors and former opponents of the project now state ““It doesn’t bother me”, “You’re sitting outside and it’s not there”, and “The peepers at night drown out the sound.”