FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

How will the project affect agricultural and recreational uses of the land?
During the project design process, we work closely with landowners to minimize disruption
to ongoing land uses. Typically, turbines, access roads and other project facilities directly impact less than one percent of the land in the entire project area. Crops grow and animals graze right up to the edge of the turbine base and access roads. Current recreational uses are not affected.

What will the wind farm look like?
The best way to know what a wind farm will look like is to visit one. Modern turbines can
be described as functional sculptures with slowly rotating blades. In general, turbines are
arranged in rows perpendicular to the prevailing direction of the wind, and are painted light gray or off-white.

Will I receive a turbine on my land?
Because we do not finalize the layout of the wind farm until a few months before construction, we cannot answer that question at the beginning of project development. Horizon designs the wind farm to optimize the wind resource, and we perform extensive wind analyses to achieve this goal.

How long will the turbines run and what happens when the project life is over?
Turbines run for 20 to 30 years. After that time, the wind farm will either be repowered with
new turbines or the land will be restored to its original condition. Long-term agreements with
landowners provide for restoration of the land after the project is decommissioned.

How will the wind farm affect the value of my land?
Public opinion polls show that the majority of people favor wind energy. Support for wind farms often increases after turbines are installed and operating in an area. According to a December 2009 report released by the United States Department of Energy examining 7,500 home sales near operational wind farms, wind farms do not have a pervasive or widespread adverse effect on property values of nearby homes.

What are the benefits of wind energy?
Wind energy is clean, safe and highly compatible with agriculture. It provides economic
development to rural communities through payments to landowners, tax revenues and job
creation. It diversifies the nation’s energy base, protects against electricity price spikes and utilizes a domestic natural resource. It is the fastest growing source of electricity generation in the world since the early 1990s.

What kind of tax revenues do wind farms provide?
Wind farms are typically multi-million dollar projects that provide significant tax revenues for
rural communities. These revenues may serve to lower tax rates for residences and businesses.

How do you address environmental impacts?
Horizon recognizes that our business has potential environmental impacts, both positive and negative. We commit to identifying and assessing these effects at all stages of the project cycle and to incorporating them into our decision-making. We take measures to enhance positive effects, reduce negative effects and, to the degree practicable, mitigate those that cannot be avoided.

Are wind turbines safe?
Wind energy is one of the safest power generating technologies in the world. Some of the safety features include turbine shutdown during high wind speeds and lightning protection.

Are wind turbines noisy?
Sound was an issue with early wind turbine designs in the 1980s, but the industry has been working to reduce sound impacts with advances in new technology. The minor sound that is caused when the blades of a turbine turn is generally described as a “whoosh” or “swish” sound, and a small amount of sound is generated by the mechanical components. It is easy to have a conversation in a normal tone of voice at the base of an operating turbine. At a distance of 1,000 feet, the audible sound from a wind turbine is typically 45 to 50 decibels and is effectively masked by the background sound of the wind itself. A wind turbine at this distance is no louder than the reading room of a library.

The wind doesn’t always blow. Is wind energy reliable?
Wind energy is combined with other forms of energy generation to fulfill energy needs. There is enough flexibility built into the transmission systems to accommodate the fluctuations in the power produced at a wind farm.