Reference Wind Turbine Designs for Simulation and Analysis

16 Nov 2023

Commercial wind turbine designs are usually protected and not released in the public domain by the manufacturers.

However, there are many publicly-available reference wind turbine descriptions. These are useful for carrying out simulations of turbine performance. Reference descriptions have complete details of turbine components including towers, foundations, rotors and control systems.

Here is a list of public-domain reference turbine descriptions:

Onshore Turbines

NREL WindPact Turbine based on the GE 1.5 MW series with 70m rotor diameter.

IEA onshore 3.35 MW turbine description, 130 m rotor diameter.

Offshore Turbines

NREL 5MW (2009)

LEANWIND project 8MW reference turbine

DTU 10 MW LightRotor

IEA offshore 10 MW turbine

IEA 15 MW offshore turbine

Further information on the DTU 10 MW turbine and the NREL 5 MW turbine.