GE Adventure

Yesterday we climbed up the wind turbine at Jiminy Peak.

Now we’ll be writing a lot more about the trip, as well as posting more photo and video as soon as possible. However, I wanted to just get a quick post up about something I found interesting. During our tour we got to talking about the signaling beacons on top of the turbine. During the day there is a flashing white beacon and at night it goes to red (the white is so bright that when it accidentally stayed on one evening neighbors complained, thinking it was lightning). Anyway, I asked whether they knew the height requirements to have airplane beacons and no one was quite sure. So when I got back I did a little research and turned up some interesting stuff.

I couldn’t find a single number from the FAA, mostly because it seems that the height requirements change depending on your distance from an airport. However, I did find these guidliens from the Washington state government which require anything over 150 feet to have a beacon. In addition, a search around the FAA site turned up this dense PDF titled “Development of Obstruction Lighting Standards for Wind Turbine Farms”, which I didn’t get all the way through, but outlines the requirements for wind turbine farms. In case you’re interested, here’s the recommendation:

Considering the lighting concepts currently used for illuminating radio towers and long-span bridges, which states that obstructions near to each other should be treated as if they were one large obstruction, a similar lighting concept was adopted for illuminating the wind turbine farms. The lighting concept for wind turbine farms includes the use of red, simultaneously flashing lights positioned on the outer perimeter of the wind turbine farm, each spaced no more than one-half statute mile from each other, and requires only one fixture per turbine. As long as the wind turbines are painted white in color, daytime illumination is not required.

Oh, and if you’re still hungry for more (which I can’t really imagine you are), here are somre more details on the light requirements from the beacons (another FAA PDF).