(Radio Iowa) – MidAmerican energy company says it plans to install six more aircraft detection systems to keep the red warning lights at the top of wind turbines off until they are needed. MidAmerican spokesman Geoff Greenwood says they started testing the system in 2023.”It has really gone well. It dramatically reduces the amount of lighting at the wind farms where we have this system installed, and we’ve gotten a lot of public compliments out of it. People notice it. They notice that the lights are off at night,” Greenwood says. They have 38 wind farms in 34 counties. The blinking red lights are required from dusk until dawn by the F-A-A so planes can see the wind turbines at night. Greenwood says the warning system is simple, and they’ve found it keeps the lights off 95 to 98 percent of the time.

“It’s a radar tower that keeps the lights off at night unless there’s an aircraft that approaches the area,” he says. “If the system detects an aircraft in the area, it turns the lights on. And as soon as that aircraft leaves, the lights go back off.” Greenwood says the lights are important in rural areas where there are small airports. “And the lights don’t go on if it’s a commercial aircraft flying over Iowa, you know, 30 to 50-thousand feet, whatever it is. So a commercial aircraft at its regular altitude, its regular cruising altitude, will not set these lights off,” Greenwood says. “What will set the lights off are the general aviation aircraft, the smaller aircraft that you see flying a lot lower.” Greenwood says they have to follow all the regulations for installation, but plan to eventually add the light control systems to all their wind farms.

“This started off as an experimental technology, but it’s really not an experimental technology anymore. It is a system that MidAmerican and other companies are adopting because we know it works and we get positive results from installing these systems and then positive feedback from the communities,” he says. A bill recently passed out of a subcommittee in the legislature would require the systems at new wind farms, and would require existing turbines to be upgraded by the start of 2028.

The first MidAmerican test systems were installed at the Eclipse and Morning Light wind farms in Adair, Audubon, Cass and Guthrie counties. MidAmerican installed systems at its Lundgren wind farm in Webster County and Wellsburg wind farm in Grundy County in mid 2025. MidAmerican plans to add aircraft detection technology to six wind farms this year, the Arbor Hill in Adair County; Diamond Trail in Iowa County; North English in Poweshiek County; Shenandoah Hills in Page and Fremont counties; Vienna in Marshall and Tama counties, and the Walnut wind farm in Pottawattamie County.

MidAmerican plans to add systems in 2027 to its Highland and O’Brien wind farms in O’Brien County.