Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “distributed wind certification”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 37 records · Page 2
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

2021 Prototype Manufacture and Installation Awardee: Pecos Wind Power, Inc.

Through the 2021 Competitiveness Improvement Project (CIP), Pecos Wind Power will manufacture a prototype of its 85-kilowatt (kW) horizontal-axis distributed wind turbine, the PW85, a new wind turbine that began development in 2017 when the company was founded. The PW85 wind turbine includes an industry-leading rotor diameter (30 meters) and full-span variable pitch blades to target a levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of $0.103/kilowatt-hour in low annual wind speeds (6 meters per second). This is 55% lower than the average small wind turbine project installed in 2018. The goal of this project is to spur the development of increasingly lower-cost, high-capacity-factor distributed wind turbines. As a result, Pecos Wind Power will manufacture and install wind turbines that increase the geographic area in which distributed wind power is cost competitive with retail-priced electricity and other distributed energy resources - primarily solar energy.

CIP↗
DOE OSTI2022

2021 Component Innovation Awardee: Siva Powers America

Siva Powers America earned a Competitiveness Improvement Project (CIP) Component Innovation award that will enable the company to evolve its 250/50 wind turbine design, discontinue its existing 13.4-meter wind turbine blades, and develop new 14.4-meter blades. These longer blades, which have additional extenders at the hub, will increase the rotor diameter to 35 meters, allowing for improved energy production at sites with lower wind resources. A collaboration with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) includes a redesign, build, and on-site structural test for the new prototype blades. This will ultimately allow Siva Powers America to pursue recertification of the SIVA 250/50 to meet international standards.

CIP↗
DOE OSTI2022

2021 Prototype Testing Awardee: Sonsight Wind

For small wind turbines - those under 10 kilowatts (kW) in generating capacity - the combined costs for turbines, towers, foundations, power electronics, installation, and maintenance can result in a high levelized cost of energy (LCOE). This makes it difficult for small wind turbines to gain a foothold in the distributed energy revolution currently being led by solar power. Sites with high average wind speeds generally allow lower LCOE, but the vast majority of Americans live and work within more moderate-wind-speed areas, so small turbines should be cost effective to buy and use within such areas. Sonsight Wind's 3.5-kW horizontal-axis wind turbine (HAWT) is being developed to address these challenges.

CIP↗
DOE OSTI2022

2020 Component Innovation Awardee: Windurance LLC

Currently, there is no wind system power-conversion component available to wind turbine OEMs that is certified to applicable standards for use in the U.S. distributed wind energy market. Off-the-shelf industrial drives have features that are not needed by distributed wind OEMs and lack other features that would be valuable for the operation and control of wind turbine generating systems. In addition to adding costs for OEMs, these industrial drives increase uncertainty and risk for project developers and prospective owners. All of this presents barriers and increases costs for the development of distributed wind in the United States. With funding from CIP, Windurance plans to develop an industry-specific power-conversion component that will offer application-specific features at lower cost for distributed wind OEMs.

CIP↗
DOE OSTI2022

2021 Prototype Design Development Awardee: Accelerate Wind, Inc.

In the United States, rooftop photovoltaic systems can be installed on most commercial buildings. However, even if all available rooftop space is used, solar energy cannot satisfy the building's total energy demand. With many building owners trying to move toward net-zero-carbon-emission energy generation, these customers often have no way to achieve this goal on-site. Rooftop wind energy technology could be an option, but most rooftop wind turbines are not economically viable because they do not produce meaningful amounts of energy and are not likely to pay for themselves within their lifetime. Some rooftop wind turbine companies have attempted to exploit the fact that wind naturally speeds up at the edge of a roof; but, so far, these solutions have also struggled to produce significant energy because only a small portion of that wind can be captured so close to the edge of the roof.

CIP↗
DOE OSTI2022

2021 Component Innovation Project Awardee: Bergey Windpower

In recent years, the cost of small wind turbines for homes, farms, and small businesses has decreased dramatically thanks to advances in American technology made possible by research and development support from the U.S. Department of Energy. But further reductions are needed to realize the gigawatt-scale potential of distributed wind energy to help electrify rural America, reduce carbon emissions, and create jobs. Currently, for residential- and farm-scale wind turbines with direct-drive, permanent-magnet alternators, the alternator is the highest-cost component of the wind turbine (excluding the tower). The Bergey Windpower Excel 15 wind turbine incorporates advanced technology in its rotor and controls and will soon incorporate advanced power electronics - but its alternator is based on technology that is more than a decade old. To help reduce capital expenditures of the Excel 15 wind turbine, Bergey Windpower is developing an advanced, lower- cost, permanent-magnet alternator.

CIP↗
DOE OSTI2021

Distributed Wind Considerations from the IEEE 1547-2018 Revision

The revision of the U.S. interconnection Standard IEEE 1547 in 2018 (IEEE 1547-2018) has added new interconnection and interoperability requirements for grid-connected distributed wind generators (DWG / wind turbines) and all other distributed energy resources (DERs). These new requirements will enable distributed wind generators to provide greater benefits to electric grid operators and DER operators, but also presents new challenges for the testing and certification of DWG systems. This report provides a summary of recent interconnection standard revisions from a DWG perspective, outlines the potential benefits to the power system from the revisions, evaluates the main concerns from a DWG manufacturer’s perspective, and provides general industry guidance related to IEEE 1547-2018 adoption.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Distributed Wind Monitoring Best Practices

Accessible performance and operational data have been identified as a key enabler for distributed wind energy industry advancement. While utility-scale wind turbines benefit from reliable and continuous supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA)-based monitoring platforms, monitoring of the U.S. fleet of distributed wind (DW) turbines has been more inconsistent, unreliable, and sometime difficult to access. Without fleet monitoring data, the industry will never understand and thus work to improve turbine under-performance and reliability issues. For the DW industry to scale up, attract investors, and boost credibility, fleetwide monitoring must be robust and reliable, select data must be made accessible to stakeholders, and the data must be in a format useful to users. To help move the industry toward a more standardized, accessible stream of monitoring data, this distributed wind monitoring best practices report attempts to cover topics including key monitoring channels, hardware, communication strategies, and accessibility. Strategic engagement with DW original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), service providers, lab and university researchers, testing organization, certification bodies, end users and solar photovoltaic (PV) monitoring experts has enabled a better understanding of the current state-of-the-art of monitoring and aided in articulating this set of best practices that will guide OEMs toward harmonized monitoring strategies, aimed at a future goal of achieving accessible performance and operational data for the entire fleet of U.S. distributed wind turbines.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Phase Doppler Interferometry for Efficient Cloud Drop Size Distribution, Number Density, and LWC Measurements

Threats to aviation safety as a result of super-cooled large drops (SLD) has been addressed by the FAA rules change (14 CFR Part 25) with the additional icing certification requirement. SLD clouds often consist of bi-modal drop size spectra leading to significant problems in simulating and characterizing these conditions in situ and in icing wind tunnels. Legacy instrumentation for measuring drop size distributions and liquid water content are challenged under these conditions. The large size range measurement problem is addressed with the development of the Phase Doppler Interferometer, Flight Probe Dual-Range (PDI FPDR). The method is described in this report along with the measurement capabilities including the dynamic measurement range and overall working size range. The PDI instrument bases drop size measurements on the light wavelength as the measurement length scale. The light wavelength is a much more robust scale, especially as compared to the light scattering intensity. Additionally, methods for accurately characterizing the sample volume in situ based on measured drop velocity and transit time are reviewed, given the importance of this parameter for merging results and measuring LWC. Droplet coincidence in the sample volume can be problematic so this condition is treated with an innovative signal parsing approach. Measurement examples acquired in the NASA IRT are provided. Measurements of LWC showed good agreement with the Artium Particle Imaging (PI) instrument but diverged from the tunnel calibration results for larger MVD values.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2024

Design Load Basis Guidance for Distributed Wind Turbines

Aeroelastic modeling (AM) is the primary methodology for structural and performance assessment of any wind turbine. Nonetheless, the use of AM in the distributed wind (DW) industry sector is limited due to several challenges (Damiani, Davis, & Summerville, 2022). One of these challenges lies in the perceived complexity of generating a proper set of numerical simulations to extract and process the key outputs for component design and verification, and, ultimately, achieve certification. This makes it difficult to reliably predict the structural and performance response of small wind turbines. From the investigation carried out in (Damiani & Davis, 2022), it is apparent that many stakeholders in this sector believe that a comprehensive guide for developing a design load basis (DLB) for distributed wind turbines (DWTs) is necessary.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2020

Southwest Wind Power R&D Test Site Development at the National Wind Technology Center (CRADA CRD-12-00472 Final Report)

Southwest Windpower, Inc. (SWWP) has been designing and distributing small wind turbines for more than 22 years and is the recognized global leader in the design, manufacturing and distribution of small wind systems (400-3000 watts). The company has been a pioneer in the development of wind technology and has built and shipped more than 170,000 wind turbines to over 120 countries worldwide. Headquartered in Flagstaff AZ, SWWP has sales representatives in over 88 countries. Applications for SWWP systems include residential homes, commercial properties, micro grids, remote cabins, telecom transmitters, offshore platforms, water pumping and sailboats. In addition, U.S. Department of Defense uses SWWP’s products in Forward Operating Bases (FOB’s), USGS uses them for remote monitoring of glacier movements and the CIA uses them to provide power seismic monitoring. Today, SWWP plans development of new technologies to address distributed energy market needs and become even more aggressive in international markets. This strategy includes extensive Research, Development, Demonstration & Deployment (RDD&D) activities to improve existing production line into more simple, reliable, and cost-effective wind turbine systems. Important part of such activities is the field testing of the new systems, which should provide: (i) validation of the reliable operation of hardware and software; (ii) validation of numerical models of the system and its components; (iii) field comparison of various control and optimization strategies; (iv) customized reliability testing; (v) customized monitoring and analysis testing; and (vi) IEC certification testing (vii) filed demonstration of system performance and reliability. Such field testing facility should encompass multiple towers and appropriate data acquisition systems. SWWP is exploring to move part of the engineering department to Colorado, and execute its RDD&D strategies in this new location. Partnership with NREL will provide great insights into SWWP’s RDD&D processes and more efficient commercialization by utilizing NWTC as the field testing site, and working close with NREL personnel. NWTC is ideally suited to strain the design. NREL is very experienced with customized and IEC testing. During this project, Southwest Windpower aims to improve the value proposition of distributed renewable energy, and make it a competitive choice in the energy markets. As of today, more then 170,000 small wind turbines, manufactured in the U.S., are installed in more then 180 countries. With the improved value proposition, Southwest Windpower wants to create and address new market needs, substantially increase its sales domestically and internationally, which should have positive impact on the creation of American jobs, competitiveness of U.S. economy, export or U.S. products, and the use of renewable energy.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

U.S. Department of Energy Competitiveness Improvement Project (CIP) 2024 Small Turbine Certification and/or Listing Awardee: Sonsight Wind

This fact sheet describes the 2024 Competitiveness Improvement Project (CIP) award received by Sonsight Wind for Small Turbine Certification and/or Listing. The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) CIP awards cost-shared subcontracts and technical support to manufacturers of small and medium-sized wind turbines. Managed by NREL on behalf of DOE's Wind Energy Technologies Office, CIP helps advance wind energy as a cost-effective, distributed generation technology option.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

U.S. Department of Energy Competitiveness Improvement Project (CIP) 2024 Small Turbine Certification and/or Listing Awardee: NPS Solutions LLC

This fact sheet describes the 2024 Competitiveness Improvement Project (CIP) award received by NPS Solutions LLC for Small Turbine Certification and/or Listing. The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) CIP awards cost-shared subcontracts and technical support to manufacturers of small and medium-sized wind turbines. Managed by NREL on behalf of DOE's Wind Energy Technologies Office, CIP helps advance wind energy as a cost-effective, distributed generation technology option.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

U.S. Department of Energy Competitiveness Improvement Project (CIP) 2024 Small Turbine Certification and Listing Awardee: Uprise Energy

This fact sheet describes the 2024 Competitiveness Improvement Project (CIP) award received by Uprise Energy for small turbine certification and listing. The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) CIP awards cost-shared subcontracts and technical support to manufacturers of small and medium-sized wind turbines. Managed by NREL on behalf of DOE's Wind Energy Technologies Office, CIP helps advance wind energy as a cost-effective, distributed generation technology option.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2026

Cybersecurity Standards for Distributed Energy Resources: Gaps and Harmonization Strategy

This report examines cybersecurity standards for Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) in light of their rapid growth and increasing integration into energy systems. It identifies critical gaps in existing frameworks, including inadequate coverage of DER-specific challenges, complexities in implementing comprehensive standards, integration issues with legacy systems, adoption hurdles for newer standards, and a lack of harmonization across regulatory landscapes. The analysis highlights vulnerabilities such as data integrity risks, unauthorized device control, and denial-of-service attacks across various DER technologies like solar PV, wind turbines, energy storage systems, and hydrogen fuel cells. The report proposes a harmonization strategy to address these deficiencies by developing unified cybersecurity requirements, certification programs, and training resources while fostering collaboration among stakeholders such as government agencies, industry groups, DER operators, manufacturers, and research institutions. A phased roadmap is outlined to refine and implement these measures through pilot testing and widespread adoption. Ultimately, the report underscores the urgent need for coordinated efforts to enhance DER cybersecurity and ensure the reliable operation of future energy systems.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Competitiveness Improvement Project 2020 Informational Workshop

These presentations from the Dec. 8, 2020, Competitiveness Improvement Project (CIP) workshop provide an overview of the CIP process, evaluation criteria, certification requirements, and NREL's technical support opportunities for those interested in applying to CIP solicitations.

49 EE - Wind and Water Power Program - Wind (EE-4W↗
DOE OSTI2023

A Revised International Standard for Gearboxes in Wind Turbine Systems

Gearbox and wind turbine design and application standards have contributed significantly to improvements in reliability over the past two decades. The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 61400-4 standard of wind turbine gearbox design is currently being revised by a joint working group (JWG) of experts in IEC TC 88 (wind energy) and International Organization for Standardization (ISO) TC60 (gears) to further that effort. Experts from ISO TC4 (rolling bearings) and ISO TC28 (lubricants) have actively participated. This revision has implemented lessons learned from industry use of edition 1 since its publication in 2012. The main document, IEC 61400-4, was pared down to essential design requirements and application-specific recommendations along with a design verification framework. The JWG leveraged concurrent development of other standards, such as IEC 61400-8 on wind turbine structures, to replace edition 1 content. These are described along with how this works with the IEC Renewable Energy certification scheme for wind turbines (IECRE-WE). The JWG recognized the interest in maintaining informative parts of edition 1 including annexes on wind turbine architecture and loads, bearing and gear arrangements, bearing selection, lubrication system descriptions and lubricant performance recommendations. This information was retained in two technical reports: IEC/TR 61400-4-2 Lubrication and IEC/TR 61400-4-3 Explanatory Notes. Additionally, a technical specification, IEC/TS 61400-4-1, was drafted to provide a reliability calculation method for comparing different design options or conditions. Salient elements of these documents are described. All four documents were recently distributed for IEC/ISO review, ballot, and comment. Publication is expected in 2023.

gearbox↗
DOE OSTI2023

A Revised International Standard for Gearboxes in Wind Turbine Systems: Preprint

Gearbox and wind turbine design and application standards have contributed significantly to improvements in reliability over the past two decades. The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 61400-4 standard of wind turbine gearbox design is currently being revised by a joint working group (JWG) of experts in IEC TC 88 (wind energy) and International Organization for Standardization (ISO) TC60 (gears) to further that effort. Experts from ISO TC4 (rolling bearings) and ISO TC28 (lubricants) have actively participated. This revision has implemented lessons learned from industry use of edition 1 since its publication in 2012. The main document, IEC 61400-4, was pared down to essential design requirements and application-specific recommendations along with a design verification framework. The JWG leveraged concurrent development of other standards, such as IEC 61400-8 on wind turbine structures, to replace edition 1 content. These are described along with how this works with the IEC Renewable Energy certification scheme for wind turbines (IECRE-WE). The JWG recognized the interest in maintaining informative parts of edition 1 including annexes on wind turbine architecture and loads, bearing and gear arrangements, bearing selection, lubrication system descriptions and lubricant performance recommendations. This information was retained in two technical reports: IEC/TR 61400-4-2 Lubrication and IEC/TR 61400-4-3 Explanatory Notes. Additionally, a technical specification, IEC/TS 61400-4-1, was drafted to provide a reliability calculation method for comparing different design options or conditions. Salient elements of these documents are described. All four documents were recently distributed for IEC/ISO review, ballot, and comment. Publication is expected in 2023.

ENGINEERING,WIND ENERGY↗