With 90 wind turbines and a total capacity of 500 MW, Windplan Groen is the largest wind farm cluster in the Netherlands. The park was criticized because of the constant flashing of the turbines at night. Residents had complained about the light pollution and the impairment of the landscape.
To solve this problem, the light:guard system for demand-controlled night marking (BNK) was installed in cooperation with Topwind. The BNK system uses transponder signals and multilateration (MLAT) to detect the position of flying objects. Only when an aircraft is nearby are the obstruction lights of the systems activated. The system's infrastructure includes seven Light:Guard Receivers (LGRs) and eleven Light Control Units (LCUs) throughout the wind farm.
Needs-based night marking was able to significantly reduce light pollution. In the first month of operation, the lights remained off an average of 97% of the time, despite high flight activity. The BNK system showed high reliability with minimal errors. This has increased the acceptance of the wind farm among the local population and at the same time ensured flight safety.
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