IECRE

IECRE is the new certification scheme that replaced the well-established IEC 61400-22 which has been withdrawn with effect from 1st of September 2018.

The withdrawal does not mean that we will stop providing certification services acc. to IEC 61400-22. TÜV NORD still holds and will also in future maintain its DAkkS accreditation and is therewith is authorized to continue performing evaluation and certification acc. to IEC 61400-22. However, our customers should be prepared for future national end user or generally market driven requirements towards IECRE certificates. It cannot be foreseen whether the markets in future will still request or accept IEC 61400-22 certificates. Therefore, we recommend that customers who would like to obtain new Type, Component or Project Certificates also reconsider the options of certificates according to IECRE. TÜV NORD is one of only three certification bodies worldwide that by 2019 will have gained approval by IECRE to perform certification according both of their wind certification schemes OD-501 and OD-502. This means that TÜV NORD is able to perform the entire range of IECRE Type, Component and Project Certification services for the wind sector.

TÜV NORD is accepted Certifiction Body (RECB) for Type and Component Certification Services acc. to OD-501 already since 2016. With more than 20 IECRE Certificates issued in the meanwhile (status of September 2019) and its active involvement in IECRE working groups, TÜV NORD is your experienced and reliable partner. By the way, TÜV NORD issued the worldwide second Type Certiticate and even the worldwide first IECRE Component Certiticate.

In July 2019, TÜV NORD has been successfully completed IECRE’s approval procedure for OD-502 and is awaiting its official Certificate of Acceptance by IECRE in October 2019. The new services of OD-502 are awailable and TÜV NORD is ready to support and assess your projects – onshore and offshore – from the planning phase through design validation, manufacture of the components up to erection and commissioning phases, as well with operation and mainte-nance surveillance activities.

Compared to IEC 61400-22, IECRE’s project certification scheme OD-502 established the new services of Project Design Certification and Site Suitability Evaluation in order to address the Applicants’ different needs at different project stages for offshore and onshore installations and sites.

New service: Project Design Certification

The purpose of Project Design Certification acc. to OD-502 is to confirm for a specific site that the wind turbines (RNA and support structure) are designed to meet site-specific requirements and external conditions. Particularly for project tender and bidding processes it might be advantageous and trust-building holding a Project Design Certificate.

New service: Site Suitability Evaluation

Site Suitability Evaluation can be considered as simplied stand alone alternative to a complete Project Design Certification. It includes evaluation of site conditions project design basis, integrated load analysis and the wind turbine RNA and tower design and concludes with a Conformity Statement. This might be used for very early stage projects or when neither Project Design or Project Certification are required.

• The fees IECRE requests are regulated by OD-001 in its edition that is valid at the time of issuence.
• For Conformity Statements, OD-001 considers no fee regulation yet.
• The Applicant for IECRE products (Certificates and Confirmity Statements) commits to comply with the scheme rules and the applicable operational documents of IECRE http://www.iecre.org/documents/refdocs/ that include the Applicant’s commitment of using IECRE templates and publishing of IECRE Certificates on the IECRE web page http://www.iecre.org/certificates/windenergy/.
• The effort of TÜV NORD is related to the preparation and issuance of the IECRE product, as well as annual maintenance and administration, and will be aligned in the individual case with the customer.
• The fees requested by IECRE depend on the scope and number of products contracted under IECRE. According to IECRE rules, the issuing RECB shall invoice the IECRE fees from the Applicant upon receipt of the IECRE invoice (addressed to the RECB) and transfers the payment to IECRE accounts. Should Applicants decide for an annual lumpsum option, invoicing is directly processed by IECRE without involvement of the RECB.

Please contact us for more information about IECRE and its Certrificaton Schemes and services of OD-501 and OD-502. Our project managers will support to tailor solutions for your individual needs towards a quick and efficient evaluation/certification process.

It has been decided by IECRE that after 3rd of June 2019 (date of the blade test report provided by the test institute) only listed blade RETLs are accepted for IECRE purpose. Nonetheless, blade tests can still be done or earlier started tests can still be completed by non-RETLs under the condition that a listed blade RETL takes over responsibility, i.e. is issuing the re-lated blade test report(s).

If OEM-customers want to make use of their own test facilities and if they intend to become an RECTF(*), then their tests and test reports can be accepted until 31st of December 2019 under the condition that the tests are witnessed by an RECB.

From 1st January 2020 on, blade tests will exclusively be required either by RETL or RECTF. By September 2019, no RECTF is listed so far and IECRE is working on their implementation to the system. RECTF are also foreseen for gearbox testing.

(*) RECTF: Renewable Energy Customer Test Facility, see IECRE-02 “Rules of procedure”, section 8.4.