**1. Introduction**

Uruguay is a small country located in South America. According to the 2010 Strategic Energy Development Plan for Uruguay, the diversifying of the energy matrix should be prioritized. Alternative and renewable energy sources rose to be exploited at a major scale. Because of its windy climate, wind energy is now one of the most important sources in our country: currently, Uruguay has more than 1500 MW of installed power lying on this green energy source.

The fast growing development of wind power in Uruguay has encouraged research on many environmental issues, especially those related to wind turbines operation. In many countries—Uruguay included—the method of ISO Standard 9613-2 is the preferred tool for predicting environmental sound pressure levels due to stationary noise sources. However, it is well known that it can incur on great underestimations when sources are large wind turbines, especially under certain atmospheric conditions [1].

This paper is focused on the prediction of environmental sound pressure levels due to the operation of large wind turbines, emphasizing in the prediction model developed by the Research Group on Noise Pollution at the Faculty of Engineering (UdelaR). For its development, the theoretical analysis of the phenomena involved on noise emissions was complemented with tests at the University wind tunnel and, of course, with sound pressure levels measurements at some wind farms in Uruguay. The aerodynamic phenomena involved in acoustic emissions were analyzed with the Research Group on Wind Energy at the Faculty, which has been working on wind energy for nearly 30 years.

The application of the prediction model allows obtaining the expected sound pressure levels at different points. Only airborne sound propagation is considered, as the importance of ground propagation does not involve an important amount of acoustic energy for onshore wind farms.
