Glass fiber from end-of-life wind turbine blades has been recycled, and now 40 tons of the material will become part of Siemens Gamesa's production of new blades for Ørsted's Greater Changhua 2b and 4 offshore wind turbine projects in Taiwan.
This is happening as a result of the innovation project DecomBlades, which has shown that recycling fiberglass can work on a full industrial scale. It could be the solution to one of the wind turbine industry's major headaches. This is stated by the energy cluster Energy Cluster Denmark, which recently honored the project with its innovation award, in a press release.
- It is not enough to focus on a technology, because a technology can do nothing on its own: It does not make sense to only look at pyrolysis, which is what we are good at at MAKEEN - we need to see it all in context, says Irene Bach Velling Villadsen, project manager at MAKEEN Energy, one of the companies behind DecomBlades.
Great perspectives
DecomBlades has made it possible to recycle fiberglass with such high quality that it is now used in 115-meter-long blades produced by Siemens Gamesa. The recycled materials – 40 tons in total – originate from old blades and have gone through an extensive process of sorting, processing and testing before being approved for use in new production.
- The prospects are great, and not just for us, but for the entire industry, because we now have a concrete and documented path to recycle fiberglass in new blades. We have now received 40 tons of high-quality recycled fiberglass, which we are using in the production of our 115-meter blades for Ørsted's Greater Changhua 2b and 4 offshore wind turbine project in Taiwan. This shows that the technology works in the real world and at full scale, says Jonas Pagh Jensen, Head of Sustainability at Siemens Gamesa.
DecomBlades is supported by the Innovation Fund Denmark and carried out in collaboration with Ørsted, LM Wind Power, Vestas, Siemens Gamesa, FLSmidth, MAKEEN Energy A/S, HJHansen Recycling Group, University of Southern Denmark and DTU.
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