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April 30, 2023
By
Shannon Najmabadi
Lawmakers Crack Down on Wind-Turbine
Lights That Flash All Night
![](images/images_07_19_2023/im-769570%20copy.jpg)
Red lights on wind turbines flash against
an overcast sky in Allen County, Kan.
PHOTO: EVERT NELSON/THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL/USA TODAY NETWORK
For pilots flying over rural America, a string of
red lights flashing along the horizon is a warning that there might be
a wind farm ahead.
But for many residents on the ground, the lights are an eyesore that
has ruined their view of the night sky and disrupted the bucolic
stillness that defined their counties.
“Imagine…red blinking stoplights…every night, all night long…and not
in sync,” Gayla Randel, who can see the lights on more than 130
turbines from her Marshall County, Kan., home, told lawmakers this
year.
After years of loose regulation, lawmakers in some states are cracking
down.
Kansas and Colorado recently passed laws to limit the flashing
lights—by turning them on only when aircraft are approaching. North
Dakota approved a similar measure in 2017. A Washington state bill
requiring light-mitigating technology was passed by lawmakers but
hasn’t yet been signed by the governor.
Many wind developers and renewable energy proponents have backed the
recent efforts.
“Light-mitigation technology is definitely something that can be done
to help improve the relationship with the community,” said Kimberly
Svaty, public policy director for the Kansas Power Alliance, which
represents the interests of wind, solar, battery-storage and
advanced-power industries.
Turbines Light Up Rural Skies
The Federal Aviation Administration provides standards for wind
turbine lighting to ensure it is visible to pilots. This typically
includes red flashing lights on top of each turbine, flashing 30 times
per minute.
Wind turbine lighting configuration, by height
![](images/images_07_19_2023/chart7.jpg)
Aircraft-detection technology approved by the
Federal Aviation Administration has been on the market for a
half-dozen years. The systems are estimated to cost $1 million to $2
million to install with additional operating expenses each year.
Wind energy projects in the U.S., largely concentrated in a
high-wind-speed corridor stretching from North Dakota to West Texas,
have been slow to adopt the mitigation solutions. None of the more
than 40 wind farms in Kansas, one of the top states for wind-energy
producing, use systems that light up only when aircraft are near. Two
projects under construction in Kansas have been approved to use the
light-minimizing technology.
Jerry Sonnenberg, a Republican former state senator who wrote the
red-light law in Colorado, said the technology isn’t cost-prohibitive
for most companies, but they have not been required to use it.
“When they’re not forced to spend that money, why would they?” he
said.
Mr. Sonnenberg, now a county commissioner, compared the red lights to
those on an ambulance and said the flashing is “rather annoying.”
![](images/images_07_19_2023/pic1.jpg)
The new laws come as federal Inflation
Reduction Act funding is spurring investment in renewable energy
projects—and as wind and solar developments are encountering stiff
opposition from some communities.
Towns, counties and states passed some 1,800
ordinances regulating wind energy as of 2022, according to a database
compiled by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. By comparison,
researchers there found around 250 ordinances in 2018.
José Zayas, an executive vice president with the
American Council on Renewable Energy, said the rise in regulation
reflects the maturation of the wind market.
Officials with Terma and DeTect Inc., the two
vendors that dominate the market on aircraft-detection lighting
systems, said they have seen demand for their technology increase
significantly since 2018 and 2019, when counties and states
increasingly began to require its use.
The companies use radars to activate red lights
if a low-flying aircraft comes within 3½ miles of a project.
The Kansas Power Alliance has acknowledged
the importance of light-mitigating technology. PHOTO: EVERT NELSON/THE
CAPITAL-JOURNAL/USA TODAY NETWORK
DeTect has installed or is about to install 100
radars, with one to three used for a typical wind farm, depending on
its size and the terrain, said Senior Vice President Jesse Lewis.
The Federal Aviation Administration requires that wind turbines
be painted a light color and have red lights on top. Developers are
required to ask the agency to approve the use of light-mitigating
technology for each project under the new laws.
Residents in states that don’t regulate the red lights have
said the nighttime presence of the turbines has been more disruptive
than they anticipated.
Nakila Blessing and her husband built a house on his family’s
farm in Schuyler County, Mo., in 2018, on a hill looking out at fields
and trees. Two years later, the 175-turbine High Prairie wind farm
project was constructed. Ms. Blessing said their landscape is now
cluttered with 500-foot-tall turbines and the night sky is polluted
with light.
“They like to say you’ll get used to it,” said
Ms. Blessing, of the turbines that surround her home on three sides.
“You don’t get used to it.”
Carrie March’s family keeps the curtains drawn on their home to
avoid the sight of turbines “spinning during the day or flashing at
night.”
“At nighttime, if you have the TV on and there happens to be a
gap in the curtain, it will really, really attract your attention,”
said Ms. March, who also lives in Schuyler County. “It’s just
something that you can’t unsee and you can’t ignore.”
![](images/images_07_19_2023/im-772156%20copy.jpg)
Nakila Blessing says that wind turbines clutter
the space around her house in Schuyler County, Mo. PHOTO: NAKILA
BLESSING
Ameren Missouri, which operates the project near
Ms. Blessing and Ms. March, said that it believes residents appreciate
the company’s investment in the region, and that company officials
will look to be part of conversations on light-mitigating legislation
when it comes to Missouri.
For residents living close to wind farms that have already been
constructed, the new curbs on red lights will have limited effect, at
least in the short term. Colorado law doesn’t require existing wind
turbines to be retrofitted with light-mitigating technology. Starting
in 2026, wind developers in Kansas must apply to use the technology
after they renegotiate power purchase contracts. The terms for those
agreements can last 20 years.
Older wind projects in Washington state have to apply for the
new technology by early 2028. The time frame for retrofitting got
pushback from some energy groups and developers who said it is too
great an expense for wind farms already locked into fixed-price
contracts with their buyers.
“It just screws up the economics of the project,”
said Spencer Gray, executive director of the Northwest & Intermountain
Power Producers Coalition.
Some residents who live near wind farms say the
light-mitigation laws are a good first step but don’t go far enough.
Ms. March said the new laws don’t address the litany of other
complaints those who live near turbines have levied, including the
sound of whooshing blades and the sense that they now reside in an
industrial zone.
It “has destroyed everything that we built the house for,” she
said.
Green Play Ammonia™, Yielder® NFuel Energy.
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