Wind Turbine Blade Crashed Down in Iowa (Again)

Sometimes wind turbine blades fall off, and this phenomenon occurred last week in Iowa, as a 165 foot blade fell into a harvested field. According to Renew Economy, this followed a similar incident in September at MidAmerican’s Arbor Hills wind farm in Adair County, where a turbine blade broke off a turbine and fell into a cornfield. And at the company’s Orient wind farm, also in Adair County, blades broke from turbines in April of this year and October 2019.

A news story after the September blade failure is of particular interest. I’d encourage you to watch it by clicking on the picture below.

The latest blade failure, which has been called a “blade detachment incident,” has prompted MidAmerican to temporarily shut down 46 turbines until they have been inspected and any potential problems are fixed.

MidAmerican believes that the blade failure was caused by faulty lighting channeling equipment that is supposed to prevent lighting strikes from causing severe damages to the blades. You can read more about these systems here.

Thus far it appears the turbine blade failures are the result of faulty equipment on Vestas-made turbines. American Experiment will continue to update our readers on future blade failure events.