Can wind turbine blades be recycled? | What comes about to old wind turbine blades?

Wind turbines harness the kinetic electricity of wind and convert it into mechanical power to crank out electric power. Electrical power produced in this way is self-replenishing and makes no emissions unsafe to our earth’s atmosphere, which is why it is deemed a kind of renewable strength.

But for a kind of electrical power to be deemed genuinely ‘green’ – exactly where it has a zero or considerably less-than-zero effect on the setting across its lifespan in phrases of waste and emissions – it is significant to also take into consideration its finish-of-daily life environmental impact.

What happens to outdated wind turbine blades?

As the initially industrial wind turbines arrived on line in the mid to late nineties, they are now coming to the stop of their operational lives and dealing with decommission, posing the problem about what occurs to their squander products.

There are some misconceptions that wind turbines have a destructive effects on the natural environment since some factors, this kind of as their blades, simply cannot be recycled.

Whilst it’s partly true that some just cannot be recycled, makers and operators are likely to great lengths to assure they are in the long run as sustainable as achievable getting techniques to either recycle, reuse or rebuild them working with recyclable supplies in the potential.
 

What are wind turbine blades made of?

All-around 96% of a wind turbine is manufactured from recyclable components. Their outer shell, shafts, gearing and electrical parts are commonly made from metal, copper, aluminium, other precious metals and recyclable plastics.¹

There are additional than 8,000 areas to a person wind turbine and they can have an operational lifespan of up to 25 years (most very last around 20-25 many years).² They can mainly be recycled at the stop of this performing lifestyle and have ever more been produced from reused components that have now been recycled.

The blades are created from unique materials, most of which is fibreglass. The average blade on a standard onshore wind turbine actions around 165ft (50m) in size. However, there is a expanding craze for taller turbines – often discovered offshore at sea – with blade spans of everywhere up to 260-290ft (80-90m) in length.²
 

Are the blades disposed of or reused?

Fibreglass is not totally recyclable. It is non-biodegradable and built up of a composite of very wonderful strands of plastic and glass, which is incredibly complicated to approach at the stage of recycling. Instead, it’s normally discarded as squander at landfills or incinerated.

Nevertheless, though most initially-technology industrial blades are being handled as squander, not all of them are destined for landfill. There are many progressive strategies their uncooked supplies are recycled to be utilised in other setting up supplies or repurposed entirely in new buildings.

Engineers and experts have uncovered a way to convert fibreglass into a critical ingredient employed in the creation of cement – an vital materials utilised in day-to-day design. They are also getting approaches to repurpose turbine blades as structural components in their entirety – these consist of bike sheds in Denmark, sound limitations for highways in the US, ‘glamping pods’ across competition websites in Europe, or as components of civil engineering initiatives, this kind of as pedestrian footbridges, in Ireland.³
 

Could wind turbines become 100% sustainable?

For wind turbines to be deemed thoroughly sustainable they ought to be created from 100% recyclable merchandise. That is why engineers throughout the entire world are now focusing initiatives on patterns that use components these types of as thermoplastics that are biodegradable, or that can be reconstituted at the finish of their lives.^{1 and 4}

Useless to say, even in their present kind, the constructive environmental influence of wind turbines significantly outweighs the detrimental, in conditions of the critical purpose they perform in achieving a web zero long run.
 

_{Very last up-to-date: 28 Apr 2023
The facts in this article is supposed as a factual explainer and does not essentially replicate Countrywide Grid’s strategic path or latest business functions.}