Composing the net-zero street

Assemble a decarbonised street and compare it with its combustion baseline. Every value is computed from the parameters you set: the traffic module uses the CNOSSOS-EU category-1 emission model (Directive (EU) 2015/996 as amended by Delegated Directive (EU) 2021/1226), with electric vehicles as rolling noise plus the UNECE R138 AVAS minimum below 20 km/h; the heat pump and turbine modules use standard point-source propagation.

1 · The street: electrifying the fleet

Traffic speed · km/h

Flow · vehicles/h

Electric share · %

Façade distance · m

2 · The party wall: an air-source heat pump

Unit sound power · dB(A)

Distance to neighbour’s window · m

Placement

Solid barrier

3 · The horizon: a wind turbine

Declared sound power · dB(A)

Distance to dwelling · m

The result at the window

Model and assumptions. Traffic: CNOSSOS-EU category-1 rolling and propulsion sound power (amended coefficients, Delegated Directive (EU) 2021/1226; speeds below 20 km/h are clamped to 20 km/h as the Directive prescribes); electric vehicles are modelled as rolling noise only, with the R138 AVAS minimum (50 dB(A) at 10 km/h, 56 dB(A) at 20 km/h at 2 m) added as a broadband floor at or below 20 km/h; the fleet is combined energetically and treated as a line source over reflective ground. Heat pump and turbine: point sources with geometric divergence (reflection factors 2, 4, 8; barrier values indicative); atmospheric absorption is neglected, so kilometre-scale turbine levels are slightly conservative (overestimated). A-weighting is computed from the IEC 61672-1 analytical formula. Reference thresholds: 42 and 37 dB LAeq (MCS 020 and MCS 020 a); 45 dB L_den (WHO 2018 conditional recommendation for wind turbines — note the comparison here is with an instantaneous level, not a yearly L_den). All arithmetic in this page was verified independently in Node.js before publication.