Vestas will add three 300 kW V27 research wind turbines to a new research project at the Sandia National Laboratories’ Scaled Wind Farm Technology (SWIFT) facility, which is in partnership with Texas Tech University and Group NIRE.

Sandia worked with Vestas to develop the new three-turbine site plan that is tailored to study turbine-to-turbine interactions and innovative rotor technologies. Researchers will also continue work on Sandia’s structural mechanical adaptive rotor technology (SMART) program. Sandia and Vestas will conduct collaborative research with all three turbines, although each turbine can also be used separately with minimal interaction.

The site eventually might expand to include nine or more wind turbines, which would allow researchers to further examine how individual turbines and entire wind farms can become more productive and collaborative.

The SWIFT facility is expected to be operational by October 2012. The Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy is funding the work.

Vestas has research and development offices in Texas, Massachusetts and Colorado that work with the company’s technology centers in Asia and Europe to improve existing wind turbines and develop the wind power systems of the future.

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