Scaled Wind Farm Technology Facility
Wind turbine research facility
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Scaled Wind Farm Technology (SWiFT) Facility is a collaborative research facility, located at the Reese Technology Center in Lubbock, Texas, in the United States.[1] It is the first public facility to use multiple wind turbines to measure turbine performance in a wind farm environment as a user facility for the Wind Energy Technologies Office of the United States Department of Energy.[2] The project was formally commissioned in the summer of 2013.[1]
Partners
Some of the present research collaboration involves the following research partners:[1]
- Texas Tech University
- National Wind Institute
- Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) for the Wind Energy Technologies Office (WETO) of the U.S. Department of Energy[3]
- Vestas, a Danish wind company[4]
- Group NIRE, a renewable energy corporation created in 2010 by Texas Tech.
Facilities
The SWiFT facilities consist of:[3]
- SWiFT Wind Turbines: Three research-scale wind turbines (modified Vestas V27s), two deployed by Sandia and the third one by Vesta
- Meteorological (MET) Towers: Two 60-meter-tall anemometer towers for measuring wind speed
- Control Building: Housing 640 square feet of computing space for wind-turbine control
- Assembly Building: A 5,500 square foot, environmentally controlled high-bay assembly area with machining capabilities (lathe, multiple mills, drill press, welders, and related items)