International Agreements on Wind Energy Standards

In 1988, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) committee T88, Safety of Wind Turbine Generator Systems, first convened to establish a common set of international standards, including standards for emerging technologies, like wind energy. The set of standards addressed resource assessment, design, modeling, and operation and maintenance requirements for emerging wind energy technologies. Members from Canada, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Italy, Japan. the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Yugoslavia attended the inaugural meeting. 

Prior to that time, standards differed across European countries. In contrast, the United States had no formal standards or certification process for wind energy. To build a new wind turbine, manufacturers were only required to acquire a development permit. Consequently, U.S. financial institutions were forced to conduct their own review process on domestic projects they were potentially funding, which included scrutinizing the wind turbine design. 

While European countries were spearheading international standards collaboration, U.S. industry leaders were anticipating that wind energy would become an international market that would benefit from a single set of standards.

During the early 1990s, draft standards began to emerge out of the many committee meetings and evolved until international members considered them sufficiently mature. By the mid-1990s, European Union nations codified draft standards —adopting them as enforceable regulations. In contrast, the United States did not adopt the standards as federal regulations— however, financing agencies used them in their due diligence review process for projects to meet certification requirements for loans and funding. Ostensibly, in the late 1990s, compliance with the IEC standards became required in both the United States and the European Union. 

The newly adopted international set of standards significantly advanced the wind energy industry. The impact can be seen through improvements in product reliability, industry maturity, and financial risk reduction.

After the late 1990s, newer wind turbine designs that complied with standards were significantly more reliable. The newly-designed wind turbines produced power over longer lifetimes and experienced fewer maintenance interruptions. As a result, the new designs displaced older designs in the market. The shift to following established international standards was a key contributor in making wind power an economically viable source of electricity. 

Having a single set of international standards also allowed manufacturers to simplify their product lines instead of customizing wind turbines for each country. By 2000, this new development enabled companies to transition to mass production lines in commercial factories, further reducing delivered costs to developers. 

International standards were also vital in helping to position the wind energy industry as commercially viable in the early 2000s. Compliance with rigorous, accepted standards assured consumers that products were reliable, which was essential for manufacturers to gain investor confidence in wind power with acceptable financial risks. Commercial viability and product reliability were integral in attracting capital and encouraging the government to provide incentives that catalyzed rapid and sustainable market growth. 

Today, in its national laboratories, the U.S. Department of Energy sponsors numerous staff members who contribute actively to international standards committees. 

These committees comprise subject-matter experts from certification bodies, equipment manufacturers, testing laboratories, owners and operators, and regulatory authorities, among others, who continue to improve standards in the 2020s and strive toward consensus-based standards that can take several years to complete.