Missouri wind turbine collapse puts 175-turbine farm under scrutiny
A wind turbine folded into a Missouri field in late August, marking the fourth collapse at the High Prairie Renewable Energy Center in a little over two years…
A wind turbine with a 394-foot rotor collapsed at a Missouri wind farm, raising fresh questions about repeated failures at the state’s largest facility. The tower went down in a field in late August, the fourth collapse at the High Prairie Renewable Energy Center in a little over two years.
The incident happened on August 26, just after 1:30 p.m., along Schuyler County Route D, about four miles southeast of Lancaster. No one was injured, according to Ameren Missouri, which owns the site and said it had secured the area.
Ameren said the farm may go offline at times while it investigates the latest collapse. That could affect operations at a 175-turbine facility rated at 400 megawatts, which the utility says can supply about 120,000 homes.
“There were no injuries, and we are conducting a comprehensive assessment to determine the cause,” Jeff Moore, Ameren Missouri’s director of Renewables and CTG Operations, said in a statement.
Fourth collapse at High Prairie
A viewer sent photos of the wreck to KTVO, a local television station in Kirksville, which sought comment from the owner. The source reports the latest turbine fell into a field and that nobody was nearby.
High Prairie began operating in 2020. Ameren bought the farm that December from its developer. The source identifies 175 Vestas turbines at the site: 163 are V120-2.2 models, while the other 12 are a larger 3.45-megawatt model with a slightly smaller rotor.
Ameren has not said which turbine model collapsed on August 26. The source therefore treats the 394-foot rotor as a possibility based on the number of V120-2.2 machines at the farm, not as a confirmed detail about the failed turbine.
The repeated failures matter for the utility’s ability to keep the facility operating. Ameren’s statement warned that the farm could go offline intermittently during the assessment, while the source says only 15 turbines were running after the three earlier collapses.
Earlier failures had different causes
The three previous collapses happened in 2024, but a filing to the Missouri Public Service Commission indicates they did not all fail in the same way. In a response dated November 7, 2024, David Meiners, then Ameren’s director of renewable operations, wrote that the first collapse, in late April, “involved the tower structure itself.”
Meiners said the August 25 and October 31 collapses were preceded by what appeared to be blade failures. He later told the Adair County commission in March 2025 that blades came off and the resulting imbalance brought the turbines down.
A neighbor who lived a quarter mile from the October tower told KTVO that two blades broke apart before the base buckled, according to the source. The account describes one sequence of failure; Ameren has not yet identified the cause of the latest collapse.
Vestas began a root cause analysis after the third collapse, the source reports. Ameren’s current assessment will determine what caused the latest tower to fall and whether the farm’s operations need to pause again.
Source: autonocion.com
