This part of IEC 61400 deals with safety philosophy, quality assurance, and engineering integrity and specifies requirements for the safety of small wind turbines (SWTs) including design, installation, maintenance and operation under specified external conditions. Its purpose is to provide the appropriate level of protection against damage from hazards from these systems during their planned lifetime.
This standard is concerned with all subsystems of SWTs such as protection mechanisms, internal electrical systems, mechanical systems, support structures, foundations and the electrical interconnection with the load. A small wind turbine system includes the wind turbine itself including support structures, the turbine controller, the charge controller / inverter (if required), wiring and disconnects, the installation and operation manual(s) and other documentation.
While this standard is similar to IEC 61400-1, it does simplify and make significant changes in order to be applicable to small wind turbines. Any of the requirements of this standard may be altered if it can be suitably demonstrated that the safety of the turbine system is not compromised. This provision, however, does not apply to the classification and the associated definitions of external conditions in Clause 6. Compliance with this standard does not relieve any person, organisation, or corporation from the responsibility of observing other applicable regulations.
This standard applies to wind turbines with a rotor swept area smaller than or equal to 200 m2, generating electricity at a voltage below 1 000 V a.c. or 1 500 V d.c. for both on-grid and off-grid applications.
This standard should be used together with the appropriate IEC and ISO standards (see Clause 2).