Design and development of megawatt wind turbines - Wind Power Generation and Wind Turbine Design - page 250

5.4 Codes and standards
Compliance with industry and equipment design regulations is one of the most over-
looked, yet crucial details to ensuring widespread acceptance and trouble-free shipping
and installation of new WTs. This is particularly true for personnel health and safety
requirements that need to be considered from conceptual through detailed design
[43, 44]. Det Norske Veritas (DNV) and Risø National Laboratory, Copenhagen, pro-
vide a good starting point in listing several relevant codes and standards for large WT
design [45]. Since this is a rapidly developing and ever changing arena, it will likely
pay for itself several times over to engage the services of a conformity assessment
service prior to formally launching a new WT development program.
5.5 Third party certifi cation
Unless adopting a strategy of self-certifi cation, involving a third party conformity
assessment vendor to provide certifi cation guidance during new turbine prelimi-
nary and detailed design phases is critical to avoiding a large number of costly
issues later. Some banks and insurance companies may require WT certifi cation to
specifi c standards (e.g. GL [23]) as a condition for customers securing their ser-
vices. No matter the fi nal path taken, third parties do provide their services under
non-disclosure and offer a unique perspective for assessing design choices and
leveraging a wide range of turbine confi guration experience.
5.6 Markets, fi nance structures and policy
One should not underestimate the infl uence of fi nancing options and government
policy on MW turbine design. Some of the most potent infl uence parameters in
value analysis of new WT systems are the target market settings. A machine and
overall WPP that does well for some markets can be clearly disadvantaged in oth-
ers. Strong guidance from the OEM's Marketing and Product Line Management
(PLM) teams are crucial for engineering to account for the range of scenarios and
sensitivities in the value analyses. An important corollary for this activity is that
feedback for effective policy structures can be developed during the normal course
of evaluations, and used by the OEM to proactively infl uence adoption of the best
policies across the various market segments.
6 MW WT development techniques
Regardless of whether a turbine is large or small, the path to a successful new machine
starts with conceptual design and value analysis. The value analysis includes a thor-
ough understanding of where the market and competitor machines are positioned,
and where any of the players can go in the future based on the technologies known
or believed will become available. The path will not likely be a sweeping big step -
rather, it is almost always the result of a number of iterations from an initial design.
The trick is to develop the incremental technologies in the most economical way, and
with as little exposure (i.e. lowest cost) to the customer as possible.