Iowa Farmer Sues Company, Alleging Three Wind-Turbine Fires Damaged His Crops

By Clark Kauffman

A Cedar County farmer is suing a manufacturer of wind turbines, alleging three turbine fires scattered debris over hundreds of acres of land, damaging his crops.

Alan Weets of Mechanicsville is suing the Chicago-based company Nordex USA, which does business as Acciona Windpower North America and Anchor Wind, in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa.

Weets alleges that in 2010, he entered into an agreement with Acciona that gave the company an easement on his property for the installation of two wind turbines. Acciona, the lawsuit claims, was aware of “serious problems” with the turbines that it installed on Weets’ property but failed to repair or replace them in order to render them safe.

In March 2023, one of the turbines caught fire and spread debris across 160 acres of Weets’ land, the lawsuit alleges. The damage allegedly resulted in Weets having to restrict that section of the property to grain production rather than forage and fodder for livestock feed.

In May 2024, a second turbine on Weets’ property allegedly caught fire, spreading additional debris across the land. Over the next several months, according to the lawsuit, Weets grew frustrated with a perceived lack of progress by Acciona contractors, who used farm-type equipment in an effort to clean up the property.

“The crews created additional debris-damage issues arising from further destruction of plastics and fiberglass pieces, making pieces that were smaller and more difficult to pick up from the foil,” the lawsuit alleges.

In August 2024, the second wind turbine allegedly caught fire again, causing one of the massive blades to fall to the ground. Weets claims that shortly thereafter, the Cedar County Co-Operative informed him it would not accept any grain from him that was contaminated by turbine debris. In all, 230 acres of land were allegedly contaminated by the debris.

Weets alleges that although he and Acciona never agreed on the cost or extent of the damages, the company issued him a check for $230,000 as compensation. The two sides have yet to come to terms on that issue, the lawsuit claims.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for alleged negligence, breach of contract and consumer fraud. Nordex media representatives did not immediately respond Wednesday to requests for comment.

A 2014 study by Imperial College London, the University of Edinburgh and SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden found that fires in wind turbines were occurring 10 times more often than were reported. At that time, the wind-power industry was reporting about 11 fires per year, while researchers determined that there were closer to 117 such fires annually among the 200,000 turbines examined.

In 2023, a report from the Caithness Windfarm Information Forum identified 3,287 reported wind-turbine accidents, worldwide, between 2000 to March 2023 — an average of 143 accidents per year. Fires accounted for 14% of those accidents, just behind blade failure, which accounted for 15% of the accidents.

The most common cause of wind turbine fires is a lightning strike, although mechanical and electrical failures are also contributing factors.

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