COMMERCIAL HEATING
Turning up the heat on noise
Jochen Schaal, managing director of SoundPLAN GmbH, outlines how and why sound perception should be considered when mapping noise in renewable energy developments
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limate change is increasing the importance of adopting sustainable technologies, but they can meet resistance from the population. This
includes concerns about noise emitted by modern renewable energy facilities or generation plants. Heat pumps or air conditioning units operating in offices and residential buildings can generate significant low-frequency noise pollution in their vicinity. Annoyance may also arise from dominant tonal components present in their noise frequency spectra.
Key risks
Excessive noise levels can affect people’s ability to do their job well or cause serious health problems. People who live in the immediate vicinity must be given special protection, as numerous studies show that long-term exposure to noise can cause a variety of adverse health impacts. This includes annoyance, sleep disturbance, negative effects on the cardiovascular and metabolic system, as well as cognitive impairment in children. In fact, according to World Health Organization findings, noise is the second largest environmental cause of health problems, after the impact of air pollution. Innovative approaches and solutions in the areas of noise management and forecasting are, therefore,
essential. These can help evaluate and address the challenges of urban densification, climate change, and deployment of low carbon solutions, such as heat pumps.
Mapping noise
If you want to reduce noise and mitigate its harmful effects, then you need to know as much about it as possible. Mapping software can create realistic simulation models of how noise will propagate across the site, and break down different components, from a range of locations and from multiple sources. Using this simulation software, a visual demonstration of where the noise comes from and how it propagates can be produced. It can also help show how well mitigation factors, such as a noise protection wall or soundproofing of equipment may work. To create the maps, building services equipment data is entered, and the sound pressure level together with the directivity of the technical installation is used to predict the noise levels via the software.
Taking sound perception into account Although sound pressure levels can be
Left: Calculation results of the sound imission prediction using the example of a heat pump with different positioning and a noise protection measure based on sound pressure levels, loudness, sharpness and strongest tone. (SoundPLAN GmbH and Fraunhofer IBP).
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determined and understood using noise mapping, they constitute just one element of a more complex assessment. People have been shown to react differently to various sources of noise and these perceptual effects through the anatomy of the ear and psychological effects are important too. For example, if a mosquito buzzes around, the noise may have a low sound pressure – but it is usually perceived as extremely disturbing due to the negative expectation of being bitten and the characteristic sound. Psychoacoustics describes human perception of sound via hearing and has been an established approach for many years to assess product sound, such as that from machine tools. Standardised procedures and methods
for assessing this have been available in the International Standard ISO 12913 since 2014, which provides a definition and a conceptual framework of soundscape. In part 3 of this standard, psychoacoustic mapping has been explicitly recommended since 2021 to support a representation of actual noise pollution in established noise maps. However, until now, the software hasn’t been available to create psychoacoustic maps. Now, researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics IBP, together with SoundPLAN, are testing and creating new noise maps that, for the first time, take perceptual variables into account1.
Loudness, sharpness, and tonality
To do this, sound pressure levels are supplemented with psychoacoustic variables including loudness, sharpness, and tonality. The parameters taken into account and predicted are based on standardised calculation methods. In the future, roughness, periodic impulses, and fluctuation strength might be added, if they prove valuable. Loudness is closely linked to the sound pressure
level, with a few elementary subtleties. For example, different sound components can mask each other in the frequency response, so that some are less immediately perceptible, or clearly prominent individual sounds are weighted more heavily, as they are perceived as more disturbing. In order to validate the psychoacoustic model,
researchers are recreating concrete scenarios in large, acoustically optimised rooms at the Fraunhofer IBP in Stuttgart. The team is testing sound sources placed in the noise map, such as heat pumps and comparing measured and calculated psychoacoustic metrics to validate the successful software implementation. The next step is to transfer psychoacoustic mapping into practical application for sound immission prediction and protection. This can be achieved by extending software, which is already established for sound immision prediction, to calculate psychoacoustic metrics. Possible application potential are urban developments with a soundscape of noise from vehicles, machinery fans, waste disposal, construction sites and especially heat pumps.
12 June 2025
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