IEC 61400

IEC 61400 is a set of design requirements made to ensure that wind turbines are appropriately engineered against damage from hazards within the planned lifetime.

Some of these standards provide technical conditions verifiable by an independent, third party, and as such are necessary in order to make business agreements so wind turbines can be financed and erected.

[1] Small wind turbines are defined as being of up to 200 m2 swept area and a somewhat simplified IEC 61400-2 standard addresses these.

[11] For small wind turbines the global industry has been working towards harmonisation of certification requirements with a "test once, certify everywhere" objective.

Considerable co-operation has been taking place between UK, USA, and more recently Japan, Denmark and other countries so that the IEC 61400-2 standard as interpreted within e.g. the MCS certification scheme (of UK origin) is interoperable with the USA (for example where it corresponds to an AWEA small wind turbine standard) and other countries.

For U.S. waters however, several hurricanes have already exceeded wind class Ia with speeds above the 70 m/s (156 mph), and efforts are being made to provide suitable standards.