The International Small Wind Association of Testers (SWAT)

 

The International Small Wind Association of Testers (SWAT) has been used as an informal method of connecting the information at international level of the different small wind test labs and/or national wind technology centers to the selected participants that have the best chance to use the information to begin or further small wind turbine testing projects on their facilities.

The target audience is the users of the testing (state officials, program supervisors, financers), the testers themselves,the manufacturers, the equipment suppliers of test components and the installers.

The goal of this conference is to present, in a short amount of time, the general information that is needed to plan a wind turbine test facility, show the type and style demanded by the current standards, familiarize the attendees with the differences in national and international standards, and show how data reduction/analysis is done for presentation of turbine information to the standards certification boards. Then to familiarize the participants with the key steps and potential problems with small wind turbine tests, the duration, power performance, and non-interference of the facility to the turbine under test. To do that the participants will be presented with the fundamentals of small wind energy, how turbines work, turbine test procedures, facility layout and planning, details on test specific components (sound levels and electrical wire sizing), the constraints of location and access to the power grid that can hamper a test program and the potential consumer confidence increase that will come from testing done well and presented for certification.