Scaled Wind Farm Technology Facility

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:^[1]

• 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:^[4]

• 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. "DOE/SNL Scaled Wind Farm Technology (SWiFT) Facility | National Wind Institute | TTU". www.depts.ttu.edu. Retrieved 2024-06-08.
2. "Making history in wind studies". LabNews. Retrieved 2024-06-08.
3. "DOE/SNL Scaled Wind Farm Technology (SWiFT) Facility | National Wind Institute | TTU". www.depts.ttu.edu. Retrieved 2024-06-08.
4. "SWiFT Facility".
5. "This is Vestas". www.vestas.com. Retrieved 2024-06-08.