SWiFT Operations

Sandia National Laboratories’ Wind Energy Design and Experiment department operates the Scaled Wind Farm Technology (SWiFT) Facility for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Wind Energy Technologies Office (WETO). Sandia’s SWiFT site team performs routine maintenance, modifications, testing, and experiment setup and execution on SWiFT’s three research-modified Vestas V27 wind turbines and two heavily instrumented meteorological (MET) towers. The team is supported by staff located in Albuquerque, NM. Sandia operates its turbine site out of a specially designed and modern control building, and conducts instrumentation installations and experiment setup in its environmentally controlled high bay located on the Reese Technology Center’s main campus.

The SWiFT Facility has a rich history of supporting wind-plant and turbine research development as a rapid technology accelerator to lower the levelized cost of wind energy. The facility continues to test and develop prototype technology before transferring to industry in support of DOE objectives and industry needs. The Sandia wind project team is focused on facilitating user needs and providing a secure and unobstructed location for collaborative projects with industry, academia, and other national laboratories as a world-class test bed.

Test Site Operations & Maintenance Safety

Site Equipment, Environmental Compliance, and Safety

Sandia has created a robust environmental, safety, and health (ES&H) framework for operating and working alongside partners at the Scaled Wind Farm Technology (SWiFT) Facility at the Reese Technology Center in Lubbock, Texas. Sandia staff, in collaboration with a breadth of highly knowledgeable and experienced subject matter experts, have developed and foster a sustainably strong safety culture, with safety programs and training tailored to the site, operations, and working seamlessly with facility users and collaborators.                    

Sandia is focused on sustaining a safe, world-class renewable energy research and testing facility that minimizes risk to personnel performing work or visiting the SWiFT Facility. By making safety our highest priority, Sandia integrates continuous improvement and a timeout policy which empowers all personnel on site with safety ownership, regardless of employer or affiliation. We live by the motto, “One Team, One Mission,” meaning that everyone is engaged in maintaining a safe and environmentally friendly user facility.

Test Facilities Capital Equipment

Sandia has made smart strategic capital investments to increase reliability and resiliency at the SWiFT Facility and in all of our activities, ensuring its readiness for partnership opportunities.

Sandia and the SWiFT project team continuously review the capabilities of the site with regard to the current and future needs of industry and academia, as well as alignment with the goals of federal, state, local, and tribal governments. The U.S. Department of Energy, through Sandia National Laboratories, is making it possible for entities looking for a state-of-the-art facility to conduct testing, validation, training, and proof of concept to use this one-of-a-kind, world-class wind research and microgrid complex to advance technologies and meet the demands of our energy infrastructure.