In early 2010 the Small Wind Certification Council (SWCC), an independent certification body, will begin certifying small wind turbines that meet or exceed the performance, durability, and safety requirements of the Small Wind Turbine Performance and Safety Standard. This certification will provide a common North American standard for reporting turbine energy and sound performance, and help small wind technology gain mainstream acceptance.

The SWCC will issue certified turbines easy-to-understand labels for SWCC Rated Annual Energy Output, SWCC Rated Power, and SWCC Rated Sound Level. The label will also confirm the turbine meets durability and safety requirements. SWCC’s web directory will include Power Curves, Annual Energy Performance Curves and measured sound pressure levels for each model certified. Standards Development Process

AWEA is the lead organization for the development of U.S. industry consensus standards in liaison with a variety of professional organizations.

TIA is working on a standard for wind-towers, wind loading, (like that have completed for telecom antennas towers TIA 222 rev G), RSI Wind has been asked to work with the TIA Wind group.

NREL's Certification Program is to test and perform design reviews of wind turbines, mostly larger units at this time  Since 1978, DOE has provided technical and financial support to American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) efforts to develop wind industry consensus standards. This support also helps ensure that the U.S. wind industry can actively participate in the development of standards by international organizations. Since 1984, the DOE support has been conducted by NREL.

Specific standards development activities conducted by AWEA involve the development, review, adoption and publication of standards documents by experts in wind technology and related topics from industry, utilities, and the research community. AWEA's Standards Coordinating Committee (SCC) coordinates and ensures the review of all standards documents and participates in international wind energy standards development. AWEA has been designated as a standards-making organization by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and is recognized as the lead wind energy standards organization in the United States.

NREL also provides technical support through direct participation on domestic and international standards-making subcommittees and targeted analytical efforts.

Since 1988, it has been recognized that domestic U.S. standards must be compatible with IEC standards to ensure that U.S. wind businesses have full access to foreign markets. Therefore, the primary role of the domestic standards subcommittees has been threefold: 1) to develop guidelines and recommendations that have an impact on international standards, 2) to assess and vote on the adoption of international standards as U.S. domestic standards, and 3) to develop U.S. standards for aspects of wind technology development and use that are not yet covered by international standards, such as zoning.