Vestas to install research wind turbine at Sandia facility in Texas

The initial phase of Sandia National Laboratories’ Scaled Wind Farm Technology facility (SWIFT), currently being constructed in partnership with Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas, will be a little bigger than originally planned. Leading wind turbine manufacturer Vestas will add its own 300-kilowatt, V27 research turbine to the two Sandia V27 research turbines. The labs worked with Vestas to develop the new three-turbine site plan, uniquely tailored to study turbine-to-turbine interactions. Sandia and Vestas will conduct collaborative research with all three turbines, although each turbine can also be used separately with minimal interaction. Creating a new facility from the ground up also allows detailed characterization of the site and the turbine components before installation and testing. This gives researchers higher confidence in the accuracy of the wind turbine models they create based on research at the site.