Wind power is an important energy transformation main force for the world, though it has always been a headache for the industry due to the difficulty of blade recycling, and now the first batch of recyclable wind turbine blades are situated at the North Sea.
German energy company RWE announced that the 342 MW Kaskasi offshore wind farm is now officially in operation, with 3 turbines featuring blades that can be recycled at the end of their life span. This recyclable turbine comes from Siemens Gamesa's RecyclableBlade technology series, which uses a special chemical structure to allow blades to be easily separated and recycled at the first go.
This kind of recyclable blade wind turbine will also appear in the UK in the future. The 1.4GW Sofia offshore wind farm is currently under construction at the coast of North East England, and 44 of its 100 turbines will be constituted by the Siemens Gamesa’s RecyclableBlade series. Marc Becker, Executive Director of the Siemens Gamesa Offshore Wind Business Unit, said that no wind turbine blades have been recycled thus far, despite nearly 90% can be recycled, which is why the team is dedicated to R&D that would elevate sustainability of wind turbines with a target of accomplishing fully reusable and recyclable wind turbines by 2040.
Chinese wind power supplier Mingyang Smart Energy recently announced the successful launch of wind turbine blades composed of more than 95% recycled materials. According to the official specifications, the 75.7m long blades are composed of recycled epoxy pultruded plates and recycled interlining core materials, and are formed by Swancor's recycled thermosetting resin infusion molding technology.
Mingyang claims that these wind turbine blades, once they reach EOL, can be recycled through chemical deposition, where resin, fiber, and core materials would be separated and recycled, before being used for other industries.
(Cover photo source: RWE)