With the energy transition, renewable energy is on the rise and that inevitably results in wind turbines showing up on & off shore. The current installed capacity of 255 GW is foreseen to grow with 70% by 2030. This means a lot of decommissioning of blades that will take place the coming years at their end of life. This poses significant recycling challenges for which solutions are needed. On the other hand, it means a lot of materials will be needed, since wind turbine blades are primarily composed of composite materials – on average between 5 -20 ton material per blade. To bind the fibers of these composites together resins are used. These resins are specifically designed to provide strength, durability but are currently composed of chemicals of concern. At VITO we are developing recycling technologies to maximize high carbon mass balances while monitoring the business case continuously, next to the development of new resin systems that allow for safer and low carbon footprint materials – if possible easy to recycle. This topic is part of a roundtable organized by VITO at the sustainable future event organized by Efeso:
With our newly cSBO funded project SBO WIN-CE VITO with its partners will address these challenges. https://www.catalisti.be/en/projects/win-ce.
