Making history in wind studies

Sandia’s Scaled Wind Farm Technology facility reopens for business

The Scaled Wind Farm Technology facility, known as SWiFT, is the first DOE Wind Energy Technologies Office user facility in the U.S. to offer multiple wind turbines to measure turbine performance in a wind farm environment. It serves as Sandia’s premier testing lab for innovative wind turbine rotor designs.

The facility was briefly closed but has reopened with two heavily instrumented meteorological towers and three research-modified Vestas V27 wind turbines. Research performed using smaller wind turbines, like the Vestas V27 turbines, can be directly scaled to much larger turbines, greatly reducing the cost and time needed to setup and conduct experiments. These turbines have been modified and configured to represent the physics relevant to utility-scale machines but are small enough to be cost efficient.

“The SWiFT facility is a center of excellence within the DOE’s portfolio of renewable energy research complexes,” said Timothy Riley, project lead for the SWiFT facility. “This team has much to be proud of, as they have positioned the SWiFT facility to be a sustainable and impactful choice for partnering with others for advancements in wind turbine blade research and turbine controls, as well as meeting the future needs of renewable energy integration.”

Read the complete Lab News article.