A 150-foot blade from a wind turbine crashed into a farmer’s field near the Laverne Kommes farm on 310th Street, approximately five miles northwest of Adair.  The blade came from a newly constructed wind turbine at the western edge of the Eclipse Wind Farms, a Guthrie/Audubon County wind energy project owned by MidAmerican Energy.

According to another wind turbine owner Cindy Steensen, the blade flew approximately 1000 feet prior to impacting the field before being discovered by a wind farm technician.

MidAmerican Energy media relations’ manager Tina Potthoff says turbine manufacturer Siemens Energy immediately shut down the wind farm and is currently leading an investigation of all remaining turbines for structural failures. Siemens Energy is conducting inspections of similar blades at other wind farms.

The turbines stand 262 feet tall with a maximum blade tip height reaching 420 feet.  The wind farm includes 60 turbines in Guthrie County with each turbine carrying a hefty $3 million price tag when built last year utilizing generous taxpayer funded grants.

Pothoff adds, that each of the giant blades is actually under warranty, so while a team of experts is working to figure out what happened, the manufacturer is already working to replace the blade.