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Why are blades so difficult to recycle?
They’re typically made up of several materials, which, like crisp packets , makes them hard to recycle. The interior of the blade is a frame made from balsa wood. The material you see on the outside is usually a composite of glass fibres, carbon fibres and epoxy resin that acts as the glue holding it all together. It’s what’s known as a thermoset material because it’s bonded using heat. This is great for durability, rigidity with enough flexibility and making the blades lightweight. Unfortunately, those chemical bonds are so strong they’re a massive headache to break up. “It’s not impossible, but it is difficult,” says Alexander Vandenberghe at trade body WindEurope. A handful of blades get incorporated into playgrounds and bridges, but most end up in landfill.
What’s new?
Siemens Gamesa, one of Europe’s biggest turbine manufacturers, has gone from announcing plans to make recyclable blades less than a year ago to deploying them last month on a wind farm in Germany. The nine blades across three turbines are a small fraction of the Kaskasi project in the German North Sea, owned by energy giant RWE. But they are also the first of their kind on a commercial wind farm. “We've done it because we work in green energy. We try to provide solutions that are less harmful to the climate than what we've seen in earlier times,” says Jakob Maennchen at Siemens Gamesa. “As a wind turbine manufacturer, I think it hurts all of us deep inside when we see these pictures of the [blades in] landfill, because we want to create something that's positive,” he adds. Some of those pictures are a bit dystopian, in a Blade Runner 2049 fashion.
How are these ones easy to recycle?
The new material is thermoset in the same way, but a supplier based in India and Thailand has added a “link” in the chemistry. When the blade is put in acetic acid at 80°C for about 4 hours, the link is activated, allowing all the component materials to be separated. For now, the number of blades being made this way is small. Beyond the German wind farm, nine recyclable blades will be deployed across three turbines on Vattenfall’s Hollandse Kust Zuid project in the Netherlands. It will take until around 2024 or 2025 before Siemens Gamesa can reach the point where all its blades are made this way, Maennchen expects. There should be no limit on the size of the blades that can be made recyclable.
What will the recycled materials be made into?
This is the big unanswered piece of the puzzle. When the composite material has been recovered in pellet form in the past (as opposed to breaking it down into its constituent parts as can happen now) it has been for “lower grade” uses – in bathroom furniture, for example. Breaking the material down into its component parts will usually mean some form of “downcycling” for another use. “There is always some degradation in any recycling process,” says Vandenberghe. Siemens Gamesa sees a few possible candidates, such as making furniture, surfboards or soundproofing. But the world only needs so many surfboards. Potentially, the fibreglass could one day even be reprocessed to be used in new blades. That’s an unattractive prospect today because virgin fibreglass is “dirt cheap”, says Maennchen. But he says the situation for materials may look different in 25 years’ time.
What are other companies doing?
Another turbine manufacturer, LM Wind Power, announced earlier this year that it has produced a prototype recyclable blade using a similar approach. Vestas, the huge Danish turbine-maker, is taking a different tack, focusing on a target of creating a blade by 2030 that can be recycled into new blades rather than downcycled into other products. Allan Poulsen at Vestas says this is a vital distinction. “We are pursuing our own idea of making a resin recyclable. But not only recyclable, but also circular,” he says. Making blades into blades is important, he says, because recycling blades into materials that have no use risks creating a new problem. “If there’s no demand, then we're just making a new challenge, aren't we? We need to figure out what to do with these materials. I'm not saying it's easy – it's a really tough ambition.”
Will recyclable blades push up the cost of wind power?
The cost of incentivising new wind farms keeps falling to record lows, pointing the way out of the current energy price crisis facing many European countries. So no one wants to make wind power far more expensive. The new blades do cost more than conventional ones, but Siemens Gamesa says only by a single digit percentage.
What’s next?
For Siemens Gamesa, it’s all about scaling up production and the supply chain. Vestas is working on its longer-term goal. At a broader level, Vandenberghe says WindEurope is pressing the European Commission to introduce a date on banning blades from being put into landfill. No progress has been made since the idea was first raised last year, but he hopes there might be headway in the coming year, with a ban implemented by the end of 2025. There are a lot of ifs, but a ban could drive investment in better recycling.
In the meantime, what do we do about existing blades?
There are no great answers today, but several ideas are being explored. One cement plant in Germany is burning blade waste to generate heat. Some blades are being shredded so the material can be used in construction materials. Finally, there is pyrolysis, where the material is heated in the absence of oxygen to break polymers apart. But that’s far from a mature process for blades. “I would like to see other industries, the chemical industry, think circularity into their products instead of just making materials as they’ve always done. That’s my big ambition, my big dream,” says Poulsen.
They’re typically made up of several materials, which, like crisp packets , makes them hard to recycle. The interior of the blade is a frame made from balsa wood. The material you see on the outside is usually a composite of glass fibres, carbon fibres and epoxy resin that acts as the glue holding it all together. It’s what’s known as a thermoset material because it’s bonded using heat. This is great for durability, rigidity with enough flexibility and making the blades lightweight. Unfortunately, those chemical bonds are so strong they’re a massive headache to break up. “It’s not impossible, but it is difficult,” says Alexander Vandenberghe at trade body WindEurope. A handful of blades get incorporated into playgrounds and bridges, but most end up in landfill.
What’s new?
Siemens Gamesa, one of Europe’s biggest turbine manufacturers, has gone from announcing plans to make recyclable blades less than a year ago to deploying them last month on a wind farm in Germany. The nine blades across three turbines are a small fraction of the Kaskasi project in the German North Sea, owned by energy giant RWE. But they are also the first of their kind on a commercial wind farm. “We've done it because we work in green energy. We try to provide solutions that are less harmful to the climate than what we've seen in earlier times,” says Jakob Maennchen at Siemens Gamesa. “As a wind turbine manufacturer, I think it hurts all of us deep inside when we see these pictures of the [blades in] landfill, because we want to create something that's positive,” he adds. Some of those pictures are a bit dystopian, in a Blade Runner 2049 fashion.
How are these ones easy to recycle?
The new material is thermoset in the same way, but a supplier based in India and Thailand has added a “link” in the chemistry. When the blade is put in acetic acid at 80°C for about 4 hours, the link is activated, allowing all the component materials to be separated. For now, the number of blades being made this way is small. Beyond the German wind farm, nine recyclable blades will be deployed across three turbines on Vattenfall’s Hollandse Kust Zuid project in the Netherlands. It will take until around 2024 or 2025 before Siemens Gamesa can reach the point where all its blades are made this way, Maennchen expects. There should be no limit on the size of the blades that can be made recyclable.
What will the recycled materials be made into?
This is the big unanswered piece of the puzzle. When the composite material has been recovered in pellet form in the past (as opposed to breaking it down into its constituent parts as can happen now) it has been for “lower grade” uses – in bathroom furniture, for example. Breaking the material down into its component parts will usually mean some form of “downcycling” for another use. “There is always some degradation in any recycling process,” says Vandenberghe. Siemens Gamesa sees a few possible candidates, such as making furniture, surfboards or soundproofing. But the world only needs so many surfboards. Potentially, the fibreglass could one day even be reprocessed to be used in new blades. That’s an unattractive prospect today because virgin fibreglass is “dirt cheap”, says Maennchen. But he says the situation for materials may look different in 25 years’ time.
What are other companies doing?
Another turbine manufacturer, LM Wind Power, announced earlier this year that it has produced a prototype recyclable blade using a similar approach. Vestas, the huge Danish turbine-maker, is taking a different tack, focusing on a target of creating a blade by 2030 that can be recycled into new blades rather than downcycled into other products. Allan Poulsen at Vestas says this is a vital distinction. “We are pursuing our own idea of making a resin recyclable. But not only recyclable, but also circular,” he says. Making blades into blades is important, he says, because recycling blades into materials that have no use risks creating a new problem. “If there’s no demand, then we're just making a new challenge, aren't we? We need to figure out what to do with these materials. I'm not saying it's easy – it's a really tough ambition.”
Will recyclable blades push up the cost of wind power?
The cost of incentivising new wind farms keeps falling to record lows, pointing the way out of the current energy price crisis facing many European countries. So no one wants to make wind power far more expensive. The new blades do cost more than conventional ones, but Siemens Gamesa says only by a single digit percentage.
What’s next?
For Siemens Gamesa, it’s all about scaling up production and the supply chain. Vestas is working on its longer-term goal. At a broader level, Vandenberghe says WindEurope is pressing the European Commission to introduce a date on banning blades from being put into landfill. No progress has been made since the idea was first raised last year, but he hopes there might be headway in the coming year, with a ban implemented by the end of 2025. There are a lot of ifs, but a ban could drive investment in better recycling.
In the meantime, what do we do about existing blades?
There are no great answers today, but several ideas are being explored. One cement plant in Germany is burning blade waste to generate heat. Some blades are being shredded so the material can be used in construction materials. Finally, there is pyrolysis, where the material is heated in the absence of oxygen to break polymers apart. But that’s far from a mature process for blades. “I would like to see other industries, the chemical industry, think circularity into their products instead of just making materials as they’ve always done. That’s my big ambition, my big dream,” says Poulsen.
This has been one of my concerns, all this stuff is great when it is new, what happens when it gets old? Unfortunately having seen some of the abandoned solar farms in a lot of countries going to ruin and nothing happening it looked like nothing was going to be done about it. This report is brilliant and gives hope! We cannot go on like we are, things need to change.
The blog song for today is: " Dreamer" by Supertramp.
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