IEC 61400-22:2010 pdf download – Wind turbines – Part 22: Conformity testing and certification
6.2 Agreement on certification
A certification body shall upon request be prepared to take on work for certification of wind turbines or wind farm projects according to the rules of this standard. The services of the certification body shall be available to all applicants without undue financial or other conditions. Prior to starting certification work an agreement between applicant and certification body shall be made. In addition to financial and other usual contract conditions, the agreement shall include:
– the scope of the certification; – the identification of collaborating bodies (inspection or testing bodies), their accreditation and their responsibilities;
– the set of IEC 61400 standards and other technical requirements to which conformity shall be evaluated;
– a description of the scope of documentation to be supplied by the applicant for evaluation, e.g. see Annex A: Design documentation; and
– conditions for reporting and investigating incidents.
6.3 Issue of certificates and conformity statements
The certification system covers the issue of certificates and conformity statements. A certificate or conformity statement is based on evaluation of wind turbine documentation and the results of inspection, surveillance or testing, as applicable. The results of evaluation shall be documented in a final report.
A certificate or a conformity statement shall be issued on the basis of an assessment of the completeness and correctness of an evaluation report or reports. In the case of outstanding issues of no importance to the primary safety of the certified object, a provisional certificate or conformity statement may be issued for a limited period of validity that permits evaluation and verification of the outstanding issues. A certificate or conformity statement shall identify the scope of evaluation, the wind turbine, the supplier, the design assumptions and the set of normative documents, standards and other technical requirements. Examples, showing a suitable format and the minimum information, are given in Annex B.
6.4 Security of relevant documentation
The certification body shall keep a file of all received material that is relevant to the certificate or conformity statement. This file shall be kept in a place with restricted access for at least 5 years plus the design lifetime of the object, for certification after the later date of receipt of the material or expiry of the last certificate issued. Subsequently the material and any copies shall be returned to the applicant or destroyed with written notice thereof.
6.5 Validity, maintenance and expiration of certificates
6.5.1 General The period of validity and/or the period of review or monitoring shall be clearly stated in the certificate. The period of validity for type and component certificates and associated conformity statements shall not exceed 5 years. The period of validity of a prototype certificate shall not exceed 3 years. The period of validity of a provisional certificate or conformity statement during which all outstanding issues shall be documented by the applicant and evaluated by the certification body shall not exceed 1 year.
A project certificate is valid for the installation at the site specified in the certificate and has no period of validity. In the case of a provisional certificate or conformity statement the period during which all outstanding issues shall be documented by the applicant and evaluated by the certification body shall not exceed 1 year.
6.5.2 Maintenance of type certificate In order to maintain validity of the type certificate, the following requirements shall be met by the applicant and the certification body:
– the applicant shall prepare an annual report for the certified wind turbine to be sent to the certification body for review. The report shall include information on installed turbines and abnormal operating experience or failures known to the certificate holder and any minor modifications;
– the applicant shall report major modifications to the certified product to the certification body without delay and provide corresponding design documentation, procedures, specifications or processes. In case the certificate holder intends to maintain and/or extend the validity of the certificate, update of all documents affected by such modifications shall be provided; and
– the certification body shall perform periodic surveillance with the purpose to check that the wind turbines produced correspond to the type-certified turbines and meet the required surveillance according to ISO/IEC Guide 65. The period shall in general not exceed 2,5 years, if the serial production has started. Such surveillance shall be on a recently installed wind turbine or in the workshop. The scope of the surveillance has to be significantly lower than for the inspections as they were performed as a part of the type certificate. If the applicant does not operate a quality system that is certified according to ISO 9001, the certification body shall verify at least once a year that manufactured wind turbines continue to be in conformance with the certified design. This verification shall follow the elements of 8.5.2 and 8.5.3.
