New editions of IEC 61400-2, RenewableUK, and MCS 006 small wind turbine standards

The IEC 61400-2 edition 3 small wind turbine standard is now available. Right now it is available as a prerelease (FDIS) on the IEC webstore (see here ) . If you purchase and download it they will send you the formal publication in due course, as an IS. This is expected in December 2013 or January 2014. Because it is available for purchase from IEC it can now be used by Certification Bodies. This brings to an end a 5-year effort by the members of the MT2 committee that wrote this 3rd edition - thanks everyone.

Following on from this RenewableUK have issued an update to the RenewableUK small wind turbine standard, dated 1 October 2013. This replaces the older BWEA small wind standard (in the last few years BWEA has done a name change to RUK) and because a lot of the content has been sucked into the IEC standard the RUK one has reduced from 20 pages to 5 pages. See here or here. Thanks to everyone in the RUK smallwind tech cte who worked on this.

Following on from this MCS have issued an update to the MCS 006 small wind turbine product standard, as revision 2.0. See here. Again thanks to everyone in the MCS small wind working group WG3a who worked on this.

The main changes in the IEC standard are:

• the title has been modified to better reflect the scope;
• restructured into part I (design evaluation) and part II (type testing) to harmonise use with IEC 61400-22 conformity testing and certification;
• caution provided regarding the use of simplified equations;
• added annex on other wind conditions;
• added annex on tropical storms;
• added annex on extreme environmental conditions;
• added annex on EMC testing;
• added annex on dynamic behaviour;
• duration testing requirements modified;
• added annex on standardised format consumer label;
• many minor changes and all known errata corrected.

The main changes in the RUK standard are:

• Errata will be fixed in a Jan 2014 release
• Foundation documents
• IEC 61400-2 ed 3
• Compliance with all sections of IEC 61400-2
• Except Section 9 (electrical) not required
• And Annex A (variants) made normative (i.e. mandatory)
• And Annex M (consumer label) made normative (i.e. mandatory)
• Note emphasised by repetition in RUK
• In accordance with Section 1 of IEC 61400-2 ed3, “Any of the requirements of this standard may be altered if it can be suitably demonstrated that the safety of the turbine system is not compromised”.
• Ongoing obligations
• During and after turbine certification the manufacturer is required to notify the accredited certifying body of all significant changes to the product, including hardware and software. The accredited certifying body will determine whether there is a need for retesting and/or additional review.
• This requirement to notify the certifying body is intended to be interpreted broadly and in a co-operative manner by both manufacturer and certification body such that any relevant information regarding the in-service performance of the wind turbine system and any of its variants is analysed and the design, manufacture, installation, operation, or maintenance varied accordingly in accordance with the underlying purpose of this standard. This requirement includes significant incidents or failures of which the manufacturer is aware.
• This requirement is to be fulfilled in a timely manner and to include all credible sources of information. Procedures can be agreed between the certification body and the manufacturer such that information is managed in a proportionate manner.

The main changes in the MCS standard are:

• Errata will be fixed in a Jan 2014 release

• Foundation documents
• IEC 61400-2 ed 3 and RUK 2013
• Sunset & sunrise clause
• Available for use from 1 Oct 2013
• New products must use from 1 October 2016 (sunrise)
• Old products must use from 1 October 2018 (sunset)
• Scope
• This scheme provides ongoing independent, third party assessment and approval of companies who wish to demonstrate that their small wind turbines with rated electrical power outputs up to 50 kW (measured at a wind speed of 11.0 m/s) and:
• with a rotor swept area smaller than or equal to 200m2 meet and continue to meet the requirements of the RenewableUK Small Wind Turbine Standard (01 October 2013); or,
• meet and continue to meet the requirements of the most recent edition of IEC 61400-1 Wind Turbines – Design Requirements and selected requirements of the RenewableUK Small Wind Turbine Standard (01 October 2013).
• Maintenance of certification
• Certificates and listing are maintained and held in force subject to satisfactory completion of the following requirements for maintenance of certification:
• 8.2.4 certification is otherwise maintained as described in section 8 of the RenewableUK Small Wind Turbine Standard (01 October 2013)
• Applicable from 1 January 2014

It is hoped and expected that these will be adopted in whole or part in other areas of the world (e.g. by AWEA for USA, Riso DTU for Denmark, and ClassNK for Japan).