By Cassandra Sweet
Wind farms have long suffered a love-hate relationship with the public. Some people love the emission-free energy they produce, and the fact that they can switch on the lights using electrons made by air molecules moving through space. Others hate wind turbines for killing eagles, hawks and bats. Some people who live near wind farms – or proposed wind farms – complain about noise from the turbines and worry that their property values could suffer if a new wind farm moves into the neighborhood.
This last worry – about property value loss — appears unfounded, according to a study released Friday by researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and the University of Connecticut. After analyzing more than 122,000 home sales in urban areas near 26 wind farms in Massachusetts, the researchers concluded that there was no statistical evidence that wind farms impact the value of nearby urban properties.
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