County won’t blink on turbine lights

By PHYLLIS ZORN

Staff writer

Blinking red lights on Sunflower Wind turbines have vexed some county residents since the wind farm was built, and the lights once again are in county commissioners’ crosshairs.

Commissioner Clarke Dirks brought up Monday that Sunflower promised weeks ago to switch to aircraft-activated lights that blink only when an aircraft is in the vicinity.

Commissioners decided to have county counsel Brad Jantz contact owner Orsted to find out the status of changing to aircraft-activated lights.

Three months ago, Orsted representatives, noting that the company was not required under law to use aircraft-detecting lights, said the wind farm was working on getting the light system installed.

Orsted representative Jase Sherwood said at the time that there was a problem with the company that makes the lights.They were working to change them out, but that conversion of the last few lights was “wrapping up.”

Orsted communications adviser Charlotte Bellotte said the company continued to work on the problem with the lights.

“We certainly empathize with the frustrations of county residents and are working with the system manufacturers to resolve the lighting issue,” Bellotte said. “About 50% of the wind farm has a properly functioning system, while the remaining half is defaulting to standard lighting. The light manufacturer performed a firmware update, but it unfortunately did not fix the issue with the lighting control modules. We are working with the manufacturer of the system, DeTect, to perform a new update to fix the remaining lights.”

Sunflower Wind has been an increasing subject of commission time since the company began negotiating with property owners in East Branch, Menno, Liberty, and West Branch townships for leases to install additional towers.

In other business Monday, commissioners met in secret for 10 minutes to discuss hiring a director for emergency medical services but took no action.