IEC 61400-2 edition 3: small wind turbines (CDV) votes & comments

IEC 61400-2 edition 3 progress:

The vote on the CDV (committee draft for vote) for IEC 61400-2 edition 3 has now been received by the IEC secretariat. Twenty countries voted yes, with one no vote that asked for a few changes. There were about 60 comments and the MT2 international committee will now work through them. The aim is to get the FDIS (final draft) circulated within a couple of months, and then the actual international standard (IS) issued in the Summer of 2013 as edition 3.

RUK smallwind standard, and MCS-006 smallwind standard:

This IEC milestone has led to a series of related updates of the RUK smallwind standard (RenewableUK, previously known as the BWEA, British Wind Energy Association) and the MCS-006 smallwind product standard moving forwards. Drafts of both of these have been circulated to the members of IEC MT2 committee and IEA task 27 working group which includes representatives of the smallwind industry from almost all countries. The next step for both the MCS and RUK drafts is that they will go through a public consultation phase in accordance with both organisations' administrative norms. The aim will be to complete the consultation phase shortly after the FDIS is published, as the release of the FDIS is the first occasion when the IEC commences public sale of a new standard.

http://webstore.iec.ch/Webstore/webstore.nsf/0/A5C565FFDF4A4045C12575570057BDA8?OpenDocument

In the meantime if you wish to read a copy of the CDV please contact your country's smallwind association(s) and/or your country's National Committee that links to the IEC.
 

RUK technical note: guidance regarding inverter changes


The RUK smallwind technical committee has released a second edition of the inverter change guidance note, and it has been recognised by MCS as an informative document. A copy can be found on the RUK website, or more easily on the MCS website:

http://www.microgenerationcertification.org/mcs-standards/product-standards


MCS guidance note: potentially novel wind turbine designs:


The Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS) has released a guidance note regarding the pathway to certification of potentially novel wind turbine designs. It can be found on their website,

http://www.microgenerationcertification.org/mcs-standards/product-standards


in it are some very pertinent points that the MCS wind working group (WG3) have written to assist people trying to do something they think is new. I won't repeat the points but I will say that certification and standards decisions are a fundamental part of a designer's early-stage work, and are as important as any other part of the technical work, and that any designer should read these documents before they even start to sketch a design.