Offshore and onshore wind turbine blade waste material forecast at a regional level in Europe until 2050

Lichtenegger, Georg; Rentizelas, Athanasios; Trivyza, Nikoletta L.; Siegl, Stefan

doi:10.1016/j.wasman.2020.03.018

Cited by 88 publications

(75 citation statements)

References 17 publications

(24 reference statements)

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“…This section will show that circular economy strategies are not commonly and explicitly applied to offshore wind, with a systematic review of the scientific literature on circular economy and (offshore) wind that demonstrates the novelty and demand for a circular economy framework for offshore wind. While Liu et al [57] optimistically stated that "wind power is following the path of sustainable development and circular economy" in 2010, a Scopus search on "circular economy" and "offshore wind" more than ten years later (2 June 2021) returned only six publications-all from the last three years [8,48,[58][59][60][61]. Pego [58] discusses that renewable energy is a key part of a circular economy, noting that-according to experts on energy and marine spatial planning at the European Commission-the end-of-use management of wind infrastructure is a "fragile point" in the environmental performance.…”

Section: Current Circular Economy Literature On Wind Energymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, recycling ranks relatively low in the hierarchy of circular economy strategies, because (a) other strategies such as repair, reuse and remanufacturing generally have a better sustainability potential, and (b) recycling can be energy-and waterintensive while being associated with losses in the material quality and volumes that then have to be substituted in subsequent production cycles [41,62,63]. The largest concerns exist around the recycling of blades due to a lack of commercially available sustainable solutions to recover the composites of which blades are made [59,64].…”

Section: Current Circular Economy Literature On Wind Energymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Data systems that offer insight into the quantities and qualities of resource stocks and flows are essential to enable decision-making for the uptake of more circular economy practices [66] and policies and regulations [115]. Initial signs of the development of such systems can be derived from articles on the Internet of Things [61,116], indicators [117] and material stocks and waste flows [8,49,59,60,89,94]. Mathews and Huang [118] compare the uptake of renewable energy in China within a global context.…”

Section: Current Circular Economy Literature On Wind Energymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The impact of material usage in offshore wind is relatively high compared to other power technologies in terms of potential water, human and ecotoxicity and tend to be justified by the assumption that materials can be recycled [6,127,141]. However, the issues around endof-use management and recycling are prevalent [8,66], particularly regarding blade waste from replacements and decommissioning operations due to the lack of sustainable and commercially viable recycling solutions [8,59]. This is exacerbated by long-running circular economy challenges with regards to finding end users for recycled materials, relatively low costs of virgin materials and low costs of less-sustainable solutions [59].…”

Section: Circular Economy-related Challenges and Opportunities In Offshore Windmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Framework and Baseline for the Integration of a Sustainable Circular Economy in Offshore Wind

Velenturf

2021

Energies

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Circular economy and renewable energy infrastructure such as offshore wind farms are often assumed to be developed in synergy as part of sustainable transitions. Offshore wind is among the preferred technologies for low-carbon energy. Deployment is forecast to accelerate over ten times faster than onshore wind between 2021 and 2025, while the first generation of offshore wind turbines is about to be decommissioned. However, the growing scale of offshore wind brings new sustainability challenges. Many of the challenges are circular economy-related, such as increasing resource exploitation and competition and underdeveloped end-of-use solutions for decommissioned components and materials. However, circular economy is not yet commonly and systematically applied to offshore wind. Circular economy is a whole system approach aiming to make better use of products, components and materials throughout their consecutive lifecycles. The purpose of this study is to enable the integration of a sustainable circular economy into the design, development, operation and end-of-use management of offshore wind infrastructure. This will require a holistic overview of potential circular economy strategies that apply to offshore wind, because focus on no, or a subset of, circular solutions would open the sector to the risk of unintended consequences, such as replacing carbon impacts with water pollution, and short-term private cost savings with long-term bills for taxpayers. This study starts with a systematic review of circular economy and wind literature as a basis for the coproduction of a framework to embed a sustainable circular economy throughout the lifecycle of offshore wind energy infrastructure, resulting in eighteen strategies: design for circular economy, data and information, recertification, dematerialisation, waste prevention, modularisation, maintenance and repair, reuse and repurpose, refurbish and remanufacturing, lifetime extension, repowering, decommissioning, site recovery, disassembly, recycling, energy recovery, landfill and re-mining. An initial baseline review for each strategy is included. The application and transferability of the framework to other energy sectors, such as oil and gas and onshore wind, are discussed. This article concludes with an agenda for research and innovation and actions to take by industry and government.

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Section: Current Circular Economy Literature On Wind Energymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Current Circular Economy Literature On Wind Energymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Current Circular Economy Literature On Wind Energymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Circular Economy-related Challenges and Opportunities In Offshore Windmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

A Framework and Baseline for the Integration of a Sustainable Circular Economy in Offshore Wind

Velenturf

2021

Energies

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“…The landfill of large volumes of wind turbine blades is a severe environmental and economic problem [31]. The mass of the blades of modern wind turbines reaches 12.37-13.41 tons per 1 MW, and for turbines ending their life in the coming years, it is about 8.34 tons per 1 MW [32].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Eco-Design of Energy Production Systems: The Problem of Renewable Energy Capacity Recycling

et al. 2020

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Due to the rapid development of recycling technologies in recent years, more data have appeared in the literature on the environmental impact of the final stages of the life cycle of wind and solar energy. The use of these data in the eco-design of modern power generation systems can help eliminate the mistakes and shortcomings when planning wind and solar power plants and make them more eco-efficient. The aim of this study is to extend current knowledge of the environmental impacts of most common renewables throughout the entire life cycle. It examines recent literature data on life cycle assessments of various technologies for recycling of wind turbines and photovoltaic (PV) panels and develops the recommendations for the eco-design of energy systems based on solar and wind power. The study draws several general conclusions. (i) The contribution of further improvements in PV’s recycling technologies to environmental impacts throughout the entire life cycle is insignificant. Therefore, it is more beneficial to focus further efforts on economic parameters, in particular, on achieving the economic feasibility of recycling small volumes of PV-waste. (ii) For wind power, the issue of transporting bulky components of wind turbines to and from the installation location is critical for improving the eco-design of the entire life cycle.

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Study on the thermal transformation of basic components of wind turbine blade

Ge,

Jiang,

Feng

et al. 2023

Asia-Pacific J Chem Eng

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To alleviate the environmental pollution caused by waste wind turbine blades and provide new ideas for recycling, the thermochemical characteristics of four basic components of composite materials commonly used in wind turbine blades were studied in this paper. Thermogravimetric experiments in different atmospheres and heating rates, and thermogravimetric‐infrared combined experiments were carried out. The results show that the reaction of epoxy resin and thermoplastic polyurethane was easy and deep in N2 and CO2. Except for glass fiber, the other three components showed different combustion characteristics in air. The maximum reaction rates and activation energy of resin‐based components in N2 increased with increasing heating rate. The pyrolysis products of the four basic components all contained CO2 and CO, and some aromatic substances could be generated during the thermal transformation of epoxy resin and thermoplastic polyurethane. It can be concluded that the thermal transformation properties of the basic components of the composite material of wind turbine blades can be used to treat the waste blades, making the resin as the matrix material undergo a thermal transformation reaction and recover the fiber. This is to effectively guarantee the green and sustainable development of wind power generation.

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Offshore and onshore wind turbine blade waste material forecast at a regional level in Europe until 2050

Cited by 88 publications

References 17 publications

A Framework and Baseline for the Integration of a Sustainable Circular Economy in Offshore Wind

A Framework and Baseline for the Integration of a Sustainable Circular Economy in Offshore Wind

Eco-Design of Energy Production Systems: The Problem of Renewable Energy Capacity Recycling

Study on the thermal transformation of basic components of wind turbine blade

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