Bending Wind Turbine Blades Circular

11 September 2020 - Published by Jonas Nørgård Larsen

Wind turbine blade waste is becoming an increasing problem as the first generation of turbines is now being decommissioned and the blades are ending up mainly in landfill, incineration and the cement industry.

The annual volume of this waste in Europe alone is expected to increase from 40,000 tons to 120,000 tons in the next 10 years. The wind, composite and chemical industries consider it important to improve the circularity of blades, and new innovations in chemical recycling could play a part in that. The goal of Interreg North Sea Region funded project, DecomTools, is to decrease the costs and environmental impact of the decommissioning of offshore wind farms. The chemical recycling of blades is expected to play an important role in meeting those goals. Therefore, Dutch recycling company Virol will be testing it at a pilot scale as part of the project.

Download the whole article 'Bending Wind Turbine Blades Circular' by Nina Vielen-Kallio, Business Manager at Virol Metaal, HERE.

Credit and copyright for the article must be listed with the article: "This article appeared in the July/August 2020 issue of Windtech International and is displayed with permission. Copyright 2020 by Siteur Publications".