Scaled Wind Farm Technology Facility Explained

The Scaled Wind Farm Technology (SWiFT) Facility is a collaborative research facility, located at the Reese Technology Center in Lubbock, Texas.^[1] It is the first facility to offer multiple wind turbines to measure turbine performance in a wind farm environment for as a user facility for the Wind Energy Technologies Office of the United States Department of Energy.^[2] The project was formally commissioned in summer 2013.^[3]

Partners

Some of the present research collaboration is involving the following research partners:

• Texas Tech University
• The National Wind Institute
• Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) for the Wind Energy Technologies Office (WETO) of the U.S. Department of Energy.^[4]
• Vestas, a Danish wind company^[5]
• Group NIRE, which is a renewable energy corporation created in 2010 by Texas Tech.

Facilities

The facilities consist of:

• 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).

References

1. Web site: DOE/SNL Scaled Wind Farm Technology (SWiFT) Facility National Wind Institute TTU . 2024-06-08 . www.depts.ttu.edu.
2. Web site: Making history in wind studies . 2024-06-08 . LabNews . en-US.
3. Web site: DOE/SNL Scaled Wind Farm Technology (SWiFT) Facility National Wind Institute TTU . 2024-06-08 . www.depts.ttu.edu.
4. Web site: SWiFT Facility .
5. Web site: This is Vestas . 2024-06-08 . www.vestas.com . en.