Composites end markets: Energy (2026)

Global energy demand rose by 1.3% in 2025, notably slowed from the 2% growth in 2024, reports the International Energy Agency’s (IEA, Paris, France) Global Energy Review 2026, which was published in late April. The IEA attributes factors like lower cooling demand in certain regions like Southeast Asia, energy efficiency improvements and slower economic growth in energy-intensive industries. Still, demand for all fuel types — solar, wind, oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear, solid bioenergy, liquid biofuels and other renewables — rose to varying degrees led by solar and natural gas, and China accounted for the largest share of global energy demand followed by the U.S.

The demand for electricity globally rose by about 3% — higher than the overall energy demand — and the IEA notes that demand from electric vehicles and data centers is growing particularly rapidly.

Composite materials continue to be leveraged — especially for their inherent lightweight and corrosion resistance compared to traditional materials like metals — in a wide variety of energy industry applications from the blades on wind and tidal turbines to offshore oil and gas pipelines and many others.

While not comprehensive, what follows is a snapshot of some of the top news and technology developments affecting composites within the energy industry over the past year.

Wind: Record growth, new technology, recycling initiatives

For years, wind turbine applications have been the largest consumers of composite materials — mostly glass fiber composites enabling lightweight and increasingly longer blades, as well as glass fiber composite nacelles and carbon fiber composite reinforcing spar caps.

According to the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC, Brussels, Belgium) Global Wind Report 2026 published in April, about 165 gigawatts (GW) of new global wind energy capacity were installed in 2025. That’s a new record — and a 40% increase over the previous top number of 117-GW new capacity that were installed in both 2024 and 2023 — and pushes cumulative global wind power to about 1,299 GW worldwide (approximately 1,200 GW onshore, 92.3 GW offshore). This overall new capacity is broken down into a reported 155 GW of new onshore wind capacity and 9.2 GW offshore.

As Ben Backwell, CEO of the GWEC, explains in the report’s executive summary, the successes and opportunities for the wind industry (and arguably, all renewable energy) come as “the energy transition has become a strategic imperative as much as a climate one.” Geopolitical tensions, particularly in the Middle East, he says, “have once again exposed the fragility of fossil fuel-dependent economies,” and that countries adopting wind energy “are not only accelerating decarbonization — they are positioning themselves more competitively in an increasingly volatile global landscape.”

The Asia-Pacific region is dominating in wind energy growth, with a reported 80% global market share led by huge growth in both China and India — in 2025, China alone is said to have installed more than 120 GW of new wind capacity. Europe is the second-largest regional market with more than 300 GW of combined wind capacity installed, led by growth in Germany and Turkey. North America remains third, including a 71% year-over-year increase in installations in the U.S., followed by Latin America and Africa/the Middle East.

Looking ahead, the GWEC has forecast a global wind energy capacity of 2 terawatts by 2030, as well as increasing growth across the Asia-Pacific region.

Investment, capacity increases and research supporting onshore and offshore wind

Along with record growth, there have been many announcements over the past year related to new funding, expanding facilities, new research and partnerships in the wind energy market. Below are summaries are some of the news covered by CW.

Supply chain: Increased manufacturing capacity for tooling, materials. To support the wind blade manufacturing market, many suppliers have begun ramping up production of necessary materials, tooling and equipment used by OEMs and blade fabricators.

For example, Fiberserve, a subsidiary of Saertex Group (Saerbeck, Germany), has added additional kit cutting capacity in Mexico to support rotor blade manufacturing. Gurit (Zurich, Switzerland) has announced new multiyear supply contracts for its custom-engineered pultruded glass fiber blade root reinforcement materials to a wind turbine manufacturer in the Asia-Pacific region and for its Opticore kits to a wind turbine OEM.

Tooling and composite parts manufacturing company DFS Composites Ltd. (Fareham, U.K.) acquired a 300,000-square-foot wind blade tooling manufacturing site in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. With this new acquisition and existing factories in the U.K., India and China, DFS Composites says it is now strategically positioned in key locations close to major global customers while enabling the company to meet increasing demand from the U.S., Mexico and South America.

Kineco Exel Composites India (KECI, Goa), a joint venture of Composites pultrusion specialist Exel Composites (Vantaa, Finland) and Kineco Group (Goa, India) joint venture, announced that its Banda, India facility  — a plant completed in 2024 with the goal of high-volume carbon fiber flats for use in wind blade spar caps and other reinforcements — has reached full-scale volume production and is shipping parts to customers.

On an R&D front, the NCC (Bristol, U.K.) announced that its Large Structures Innovation Centre (LSIC) will be located on the Isle of Wight, with Vestas as a launch partner. The LSIC will be an open-access national facility designed to support the development, demonstration and industrialization of large, high-performance composite structures with an initial focus on the wind energy industry. The NCC has said that the formal launch of the LSIC will be in 2027.

Support for offshore wind development. While onshore wind continues to lead installations and current online power generation, offshore wind farms are growing especially in Asia and Europe. To support this, Vestas (Aarhus, Denmark) has announced plans to establish a new nacelle and hub factory in Scotland to support offshore wind needs in the U.K. and Europe. Partnerships have also been announced between the Norwegian Offshore Wind (Haugesund) and the German-Norwegian Chamber of Commerce and France Offshore Renewables, respectively, with a focus on connecting the necessary supply chains and policymakers to support offshore wind growth in these regions. In the U.K., the Crown Estate (London) has announced investments of up to £400 million to support offshore wind growth in the region.

On the research front, the 3-year HAIZEEKO project begun in 2025 and coordinated by Navacel (Erandio, Spain), is focused on advancing technologies that support the needs of offshore wind with a focus on sustainability, energy efficiency and improved durability. Technologies being investigated include recyclable blade materials, ceramic protective coatings, preventive maintenance monitoring technologies and more.

Along with Navacel, the project consortium is formed by Argolabe Ingeniería; Mecanizados Ekimen; Global Factor; Innomat Coatings; Innovation Tree; Manutención y Manipulación Eraman; Kera‑Coat and Mandiola Composites. The HAIZEEKO project includes the participation of Cidetec Surface Engineering and Tecnalia as RVCTI agents, with the collaboration of the Basquenergy Cluster.

Increasingly automated, digital, on-site inspection and repair technologies

It’s worth noting that repair of existing wind blades also requires substantial investment and increasing innovation. According to market research and consulting strategy firm IntelStor (Houston, Texas, U.S.), in 2025 the U.S. wind industry spent more than $2.92 billion on wind turbine repairs. Blades amounted to about 37% of that cost, with lightning damage being the most expensive repair, followed by blade root failures.

Traditionally, wind blade repairs have been costly and challenging for technicians to perform — though a number of newer technologies have been developed to aid the process. A few recent examples include:

• Robotic repair patch technology. The ROMAIN project, coordinated by EDP Renewables (Lisbon, Portugal), has developed and field-validated a robotic system for automating the structural repair of composite wind turbine blades. In this system, developed by Tecnalia (San Sebastián, Spain), a robotic applicator travels up the turbine to apply premanufactured prepreg patches using vacuum consolidation and controlled in situ thermal curing. This study is ongoing, but so far, Tecnalia has demonstrated a reduction in repair time of close to 50% and has evaluated two prepreg systems.
• AR-enabled inspection. Spiral Science and Technology Inc.’s (Boston, Mass., U.S.) Roboscope is a recently launched augmented reality (AR) inspection platform said to be designed to aid wind blade quality control and replace paper logs. Using iPhone LiDAR, an inspector places AR markers directly onto defects on the blade’s surface, which record the defect type, spatial coordinates, dimensional data, inspector ID and timestamp.
• On-site blade root repair. Rotor blade specialist We4Ce (Almelo, Netherlands) and precision machining specialist CNC Onsite (Veijle, Denmark) jointly developed an in-field remanufacturing method, called “Re-FIT,” for repairing loose blade root bushings, eliminating the need for off-site transport or blade waste.
• Digital leading edge profile inspection. 3D surface inspection technology company 8tree (Constance, Germany and Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., U.S.) has introduced a digital and optical inspection product called profileCHECK that is designed to replace manual measurement techniques and gauges to evaluate the leading edge profile of wind blades. The system is said to both increase measurement accuracy and enable digital tracing.

New designs in the pipeline including one-blade or bladeless turbines

There are also a variety of development initiatives aiming to redesign wind turbines and related wind-based power generation systems — including those that aim to reduce costs by eliminating some (or all) of the turbine blades.

For example, startup TouchWind B.V. (Eindhoven, Netherlands) has developed a single-rotor, self-adjusting floating wind turbine with partners We4Ce and Kleizen (Hengelo, Netherlands). The turbines are designed to be able to run continuously in deep offshore areas, and can be installed closer together than traditional three-blade designs to reduce costs. The current prototypes were manufactured from fiberglass-reinforced epoxy in a novel one-shot infusion process developed by We4Ce, using complex molds produced by Kleizen.

Multiple types of bladeless wind turbines (BWT) — generally small systems suited for urban use, for example — incorporating composite columns are also in early stages of development, but matching the efficiency of a conventional multi-blade is a challenge. Aiming to optimize the design process and scale up BWT technology, engineers at the University of Glasgow (Scotland) have published research showing how computer modeling techniques can be used to simulate performance on thousands of design variations, leading to designs that balance power generation and structural strength.

“In the future, BWTs could play an invaluable role in generating wind power in urban environments, where conventional wind turbines are less useful. BWTs are quieter than wind turbines, take up less space, pose less of a threat to wildlife and have fewer moving parts, so they should require less regular maintenance,” explains the University of Glasgow’s James Watt School of Engineering Dr. Wrik Mallik, one of the paper’s authors.

Beyond ground-based turbines of various sizes and numbers of blades, there are a number of airborne wind energy (AWE) systems that leverage composite materials, including kites and, as covered in a recent CW news post, a high-altitude (approximately 2,000 meters aboveground) system that combines a helium-lifted aerostat with integrated wind turbines to harness stronger, more consistent high-altitude winds than what is available to ground-based turbines. The system, called the S2000 airborne wind power system and developed by Chinese startup Lin Yi Yuan Chuan Energy Technology (Beijing), is reported to contain a combination of carbon fiber and Kevlar composites in its turbine blades, main envelope, large duct structures, airbag and mooring/tether cables. 

Wind industry-optimized carbon fiber research

There is also notable ongoing R&D at the materials level, from new lightning strike protection solutions to use of bio-based resins or fibers. One inititative CW recently covered is the Carbon Fiber Design project led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL, Oak Ride, Tenn., U.S.) in collaboration with Sandia National Laboratories (Sandia, Albuquerque, N.M., U.S.) and Montana State University (MSU, Bozeman, Mont., U.S.). For the past several years, the team has worked on novel ways to increase the compressive strength of carbon fibers while also keeping production costs as low as possible. This research, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and targeted initially for applications in wind energy such as wind blade spar caps, is working on development and ultimately commercialization of fibers optimized with a three-lobe cross-sectional diameter and specialized manufacturing process.

Recycling wind blades

Solutions for recycling or repurposing both the glass and carbon fiber in wind blades at their end of life (EOL) continue to be a priority for the wind industry (see CW’s 2022 feature on wind blade recycling for a refresher on the basics).

Mechanical or cement kiln co-processing. The most readily available commercial solutions include mechanical shredding or grinding of wind blades and using the pieces as filler or within injection molding pellets, and/or replacing fossil fuels in the production of cement. Companies providing these services commercially include Veolia (Louisiana, Mo., U.S. and Paris, France), which founded its U.S. wind blade recycling site in 2020 in partnership with GE Renewable Energy to support cement co-processing; Regen Fiber (Fairfax, Iowa, U.S.), which opened its site in 2024 to produce additive materials to enhance concrete and asphalt; and Isodan Engineering ApS (Holeby, Denmark), which has developed a mobile mechanical-based wind blade recycling unit such as one that was delivered to Greater Renewable of Iowa (GRI, Ogden, Iowa, U.S.) capable of processing approximately 20,000 pounds of material per shift.

While recycling EOL wind blades perhaps gets the most attention, it’s worth noting that many solutions are also in place for processing scrap from the manufacturing process — especially for higher-value carbon fiber composites used in spar caps. For example, recycled carbon fiber (rCF) materials supplier Fairmat (Paris, France) introduced a new product incorporating recycled spar cap production waste at JEC World 2026. Fairmat’s latest FairBoard products are panels up to 4 × 1.6 meters in size, manufactured from a base of rCF/PE or VE waste from pultruded spar caps sourced from the wind energy industry. Fairmat has developed and patented a low-energy method for cutting these spar caps to size, after which the materials are laid up between layers of glass fabric and new liquid epoxy. The board is then pressed in a closed mold, followed by trimming and painting to produce the final product that can be used for countertops, wall or ceiling panels (read more about FairBoard and other Fairmat products in CW’s recent plant tour).

Solvolysis and pyrolysis/thermolysis. Chemically (solvolysis) or thermally (pyrolysis or thermolysis) separating fibers from resins are being pursued widely for the benefit of many industries, including wind. Among those focused on recycling solutions for wind turbines are Carbon Rivers Inc. (Knoxville, Tenn., U.S.), which offers a commercial pyrolysis process for wind turbine blades and other GFRP parts like boat hulls, and Gjenkraft AS (Høyanger, Norway), which has developed thermolysis recycling of wind blade materials, including glass and carbon fibers. In fall 2025, Gjenkraft announced that it had secured funding to build its first industrial plant with an annual processing capacity of 2,800 tonnes, and said that it also plans to expand across Europe and reach a total capacity of 100,000 tons/year by 2035. It’s worth noting that, like many recycling-based companies, Gjenkraft is also involved in the recycling of manufacturing scrap, including an agreement announced in fall 2025 with Original Composites & Fiberglass (OCF, Toledo, Ohio, U.S.) in an effort to create a closed-loop system for integrating waste back into the production of new glass fiber.

REFRESH consortium: Advancing all major recycling types. A notable project on the research side includes REFRESH. Launched in 2023, this 3-year EU-funded project and consortium is entering its final months and reported strong progress at its May 2026 general assembly toward its goals of creating a smart, circular GFRP wind blade recycling system.

The project has included the development and scale-up of mechanical (Gees Recycling, Aviano, Italy), thermal (Gjenkraft) and microwave-assisted pyrolysis (CIRCE technology center, Zaragoza, Spain) recycling processes, as well as various new application areas for recycled materials, traceability technology and sustainability assessments. In 2025, REFRESH published the life cycle assessment (LCA) results for its mechanical, pyrolysis and microwave-assisted pyrolysis (MW-pyrolysis) processes, reporting overall environmental impact reductions compared to incineration of the GFRP materials. Most recently, the consortium has shared that it has developed a vacuum-infused blade tip prototype made from recycled glass fiber (rGF) mats sourced from wind blades, and claims its mechanical properties rival those of virgin fiberglass materials.

Repurposing blades for bridges and furniture. Repurposing intact wind blades, whether in full or in pieces, presents perhaps the lowest-energy, most readily available solution for keeping blades out of landfills. Several research groups and companies are using blades to construct new pedestrian bridges, outdoor furniture pieces, catamaran demonstrators and more.

In 2025, the Re-Wind Network Group, which combines the efforts of faculty, staff and students at five academic institutions, announced that it has built its third BladeBridge pedestrian bridge in Atlanta, Georgia (the first two are in Ireland). The bridge spans about 50 feet and incorporates two decommissioned wind blades donated by Siemens Gamesa into its construction.

In early 2026, Re-Wind shared that it has published a paper jointly with its research partners analyzing and comparing the techno-economic and life cycle impacts of trail bridges made from decommissioned wind blades with steel, wood and FRP bridges. The results were said to show that the BladeBridge is significantly less expensive to produce and releases less CO2eq into the environment (i.e., less Global Warming Potential) than the three commercially available bridges.

The group has also formed a startup called BladeBridge in Cork, Ireland (the site of the first bridge) to continue design projects with blades, including work with Ireland-based energy utility company Energia Renewables to construct a shelter and seating area from decommissioned blades.

Design for recyclability. Beyond solutions for recycling already existing blades, recyclability is increasingly being factored into wind blade design from the start. A variety of resin systems have been developed that are engineered to be chemically separated from the fibers at the blade’s EOL so that the fibers can be reused. Today’s commercial resin options used within the wind market include Aditya Birla Advanced Materials’ (Mumbai, India) recyclable epoxy Recyclamine, Swancor’s (Nantou, Taiwan) recyclable epoxy and thermoset product line EzCiclo, and Arkema’s (Colombes, France) liquid thermoplastic Elium.

The first reported to commercialize a wind turbine blade using one of these materials was Siemens Gamesa (Zamudio, Spain) with the launch of its first offshore RecyclableBlade in 2021, which incorporated Recyclamine epoxy used, notably, as a drop-in replacement within its current manufacturing process. Siemens Gamesa has reported multiple orders of these blades so far, including installations at an offshore wind farm in Kawasaki, Japan. In April 2026, energy company RWE (Essen, Germany) announced that its Thor 1.1-GW offshore wind farm being installed this year off the coast of Denmark will feature 40 turbines equipped with RecyclableBlades (120 blades total). In fall 2025, Swancor announced that Siemens Gamesa will use its EzCiclo resin for 50 offshore turbines at RWE’s Sofia, U.K. wind farm.

Various other blade manufacturers, OEMs and research organizations are working on similar design for recycling initiatives. For example, wind turbine manufacturer Leitwind (Vipiteno, Italy), which announced that it has selected Recyclamine for the resin system and bonding paste of its LS20.X wind blades. As of April 2026, the first prototypes were in production.

Vitrimers — thermoset plastics characterized by reprocessability and repairability similar to that of thermoplastics — present another potentially attractive option. The EU-funded EOLIAN research project was launched in 2024 with the goal of developing wind blades with materials that are both recyclable and bio-based compared to traditional GFRP, exploring a unique combination of basalt fiber infused with a bio-based vitrimer. While the high viscosity and short pot-life of vitrimers typically pose challenges for infusion, in February 2026, project partners Proplast (Alessandria, Italy) and Politecnico di Milano (Italy) announced the first successful infusion trials of a test laminate made with basalt fiber and a 60% bio-based vitrimer synthesized by Tekniker (Gipuzkoa, Spain). Research continues on resin formulation, structural health monitoring technology and more.

The EU-funded BLADE2CIRC project is also looking at vitrimers and biomaterials as a circularity design solution for wind blades. The 42-month consortium initiative, begun in 2023 and coordinated by Aitiip Tecnology Center (Zaragoza, Spain), is working on a variety of technologies including: dynamic vitrimer systems enhanced for better recyclability, lignin fiber-based fabrics, standards assessment methodology of new materials into the wind industry, recycling enzymes and more. In April 2026, halfway through the project timeline, BLADE2CIRC said its second phase will increasingly focus on validation and demonstration.

New uses for recycled materials. Recovering high-quality materials back from blades is just step one — finding new applications for these reclaimed materials is equally as important, and a challenge many are working on. The Holy Grail, perhaps, is the circular one: the ability to reuse wind blade materials back into the manufacture of new blades.

Working toward this goal, Verretex SA (Lausanne, Switzerland), a manufacturer of nonwoven textiles made from rGF, and Ryse Energy (Castalla, Spain), a manufacturer of small wind turbines and hybrid off-grid systems, have completed a pilot study demonstrating that Verretex’s 100% rGF textiles can be used as a drop-in replacement — without changing Ryse’s existing process or tooling, and meeting current standards — for conventional virgin glass fiber fabrics in the manufacture of wind turbine blades.

Following this pilot study success, Verretex says it plans to scale up its production to meet customer demands and bring costs in line with industry standards. Ryse Global intends to ultimately integrate these materials into its production models.

 

Other renewable and low-emissions energy technology using composites: Tidal, solar, geothermal

Wind energy isn’t the only renewable energy source that takes advantage of composite materials; their corrosion resistance, light weight and, for certain materials and applications, high-temperature potential also lend themselves to applications like tidal turbine blades, hulls and other structural components for wave energy converters, solar panel cell components, heat storage pipes for geothermal plants and more. This is especially important, as the IEA reports that solar was “the largest single source of growth” in the energy market in 2025 globally, and that solar, wind, nuclear, hydropower and other renewables combined contributed nearly 60% of global demand growth.

New tidal turbine blade certifications and R&D. Recent developments in this market include the certification of Proteus Marine Renewables’ (Bristol, U.K.) AR1100-1.1-megawatt (MW) tidal turbine by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). This means that the turbine, which was installed in early 2025 and reported to be Japan’s first MW-scale grid connected tidal system, is now exporting power to the country’s national grid.

The AR1100 tidal turbine generator (TTG) features a horizontal-axis rotor with three carbon fiber composite blades that are independently controlled by electromechanical pitch systems housed in the turbine hub. This is said to enable real-time control for maximum energy capture and to minimize hydrodynamic loads. According to Proteus, the tidal turbine manufacturing process involves several stages. Main components are first placed in molds and infused with resin, usually in a single infusion process. Some parts are then machined for greater precision, and the components are glued together using f-alignment fixtures to enable correct attachment to the rotor hub. A hand-finishing stage is required to strengthen the bonded joints. The final components are painted for protection and aesthetics.

There are also a variety of developments in R&D stages. For example, a collaboration between large-format additive manufacturing (LFAM) machine supplier Thermwood Corp. (Dale, Ind., U.S.), the LSAM Research Laboratory at Purdue University (West Lafayette, Ind., U.S.), the University of Sheffield (U.K.) and the University of Oxford (U.K.) is targeting the advancement of tidal energy manufacturing through the joint development and demonstration of a double-sided, large-scale additively manufactured (LSAM) mold for producing 2-meter-long tidal turbine blades.

Solving heat and weight challenges for solar applications. Composites have many potential uses in solar energy applications, with perhaps the simplest being as a lightweight material for the panel’s support structure. In recent years, for example, EconCore (Leuven, Netherlands) launched a composite and honeycomb rooftop solar panel product said to reduce the weight of solar installations by up to 65%, and startup Levante (Bari, Italy) developed a series of standardized, portable solar panels integrating rCF, thermoplastics and silicon solar cells to maximize light weight and rigidity.

Further, as CW has reported, one challenge to the development of concentrated solar plants (CSP) is the high heat involved. CSP work by using mirror-like heliostats to concentrate sunlight to heat molten salt, which in turn stores energy. Temperatures can exceed 700°C and degrade traditional materials like metals. Composites — specifically, ceramic matrix composites (CMC) — offer one solution. See CW’s coverage of nonprofit scientific and R&D organization SRI (Menlo Park, Calif., U.S.), which has developed a process that is said to produce CMC with increased durability and resistance to corrosion from both high temperatures and molten salt compared to metals, while reducing manufacturing costs by 50% versus traditional CMC.

The same technologies can also apply to space, and composites are also used to lightweight and increase performance of solar arrays for satellites. As CW editor-in-chief Scott Francis reports, constellation satellites are increasingly replacing large satellites, requiring higher-rate production and lower costs while maintaining high performance including light weight and low coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE).

Aiming to achieve these goals, resin, prepreg and core materials supplier Patz Materials and Technologies (PMT, Benicia, Calif., U.S.) partnered with Rock West Composites (RWC, San Diego, Calif, U.S.) and braiding specialist A&P Technology (Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.) to combine Patz’ cellular core and A&P’s QISO carbon fiber braid into facesheets and components in RWC’s Strato line of solar array substrates and other satellite materials. The resulting panels, built and tested by RWC, are said to match metrics like compressive strength, compressive modulus, tensile modulus and flatwise tension of conventional materials like metals — and at much lower cost.

Another recent example leveraging the flexibility of certain composite materials is Suzhou Zenix Composites Co. Ltd. (Suzhou, China), an advanced technology company that claims it has developed a rollable, flexible solar array using smart composite materials, said to deliver up to 30% conversion/power generation efficiency in orbit. As explained in this report shared by SAMPE China, Zenix explains the system is built around smart deformable composite materials and can be configured with pod-shaped or C-shaped booms. This architecture is intended to provide a simple, lightweight structure with low deployment impact and a long release stroke, supporting compact storage during launch and controlled deployment once in orbit. The flexible solar cell system is said to be driven by a winding and stretching mechanism and able to reach a power-to-mass ratio of 2-3 times higher than that of rigid solar cells. Zenix says this technology has been applied to satellites already, and that it plans to support larger-scale commercial aerospace applications as well as other spacecraft structures in future.

Another advantage of composites in these applications is tailorability and ability to provide strength and other mechanical performance requirements with relatively thin, lightweight materials. As CW has covered, Kerberos Engineering (Murcia, Spain) manufactures deployable satellite solar array structures made with ultra-thin 0/90 woven carbon fiber spread tow fabrics from TeXtreme (Borås, Sweden), chosen because they are said to reduce required resources by 90% while also improving precision during layup and overall product robustness.

GFRP pipes for geothermal heat storage. Composites manufacturer Exel Composites announced in August 2025 that it had completed an R&D project with geothermal technology expert QHeat (Helsinki, Finland), aimed at providing glass fiber composite tubes to store excess heat energy at a waste incineration plant.

According to Exel, this plant typically releases excess heat into the air and then has to pay for supplemental heat in the winter, but the GFRP tubes — engineered for underground pressure and temperature requirements — are able to store 14 gigawatt-hours of heat in underground wells 2 kilometers underground.

Composites supporting high-temp nuclear reactors, construction needs

In 2025, the IEC reports that 3 GW of new nuclear capacity came online (equaling 420 GW total, with reactors in operation in more than 30 countries), with new capacity led by China, India and Russia, each of which are said to have completed work on new reactors.

The use of CMC for components in nuclear power plants in increasing, especially to meet the high-temperature needs of next-generation fission and fusion reactors in development.

For example, General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS, San Diego, Calif., U.S.) is developing silicon carbide (SiC) composites — specifically, its SiGA high-tech engineered CMC — for nuclear fuel rod cladding and other applications.

Dr. Christina A. Back, vice president of nuclear technologies and materials for GA-EMS, explains further: “In this [SiGA high-temperature cladding] material, both the fiber and matrix comprise crystalline beta-phase SiC (β-SiC), because it resists embrittlement from neutrons in the nuclear reactor. This environment currently requires replacing Zircaloy metal fuel rods in less than 5 years. In the advanced gas-cooled reactors we’re working with, the SiC/SiC clad fuel rods, which have exceptional resistance to neutron damage, could have a 30-year lifetime in helium coolants.” Aiming to increase its range of temperature capabilities, the company is also working on use of carbon fiber in a SiC matrix or zirconium carbide fiber with high-temperature matrices.

GA-EMS aims to help advance and scale up the U.S. supply chain for nuclear-grade SiC/SiC fibers and SiC foams, both for current fission applications and future fusion plants. Read more in “GA-EMS industrializing SiC/SiC and other CMC via MAITrX facility.”

In addition, composites alongside manufacturing methods like LFAM present opportunities for accelerated construction of nuclear plants. For example, at its Hermes Low-Power Demonstration Reactor in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where it will demonstrate its nuclear fission technology, Kairos Power (Alamedia, Calif., U.S.) partnered in a DOE-funded project with with nearby ORNL on the construction of complex, 42-foot-tall concrete bioshield structures surrounding the reactor vessel.

In the first phase of this project, ORNL’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility (MDF) designed, simulated, built (alongside 3D printing partners Haddy and Additive Engineering Solutions) and assembled demonstrator versions of complex, stackable, 10 × 10-foot zigzag-shaped carbon fiber/ABS forms that met the pressure requirements for pouring the ultimately 40-foot columns. After the first phase’s success, the partners continue advancing and optimizing the process, with an ultimate goal of reducing costs and building even larger forms.

Oil and gas: New offshore pipelines, repair technology

Corrosion-resistant composites have been adopted to replace metal in a variety of oil and gas applications. Notably, thermoplastic composite pipes (TCP) have become a mainstay corrosion-resistant steel replacement in offshore oil/gas applications like flowlines pipes, risers, jumpers and more, led by originating company Airborne Oil & Gas (rebranded as Strohm in 2020, IJmuiden, Netherlands) and Magma Global Ltd. (Portsmouth, U.K., owned by TechnipFMC since 2021).

In mid-2025, Strohm announced the completion of 13 TCP jumpers for ExxonMobil’s Yellowtail field offshore Guyana — the first as part of Strohm’s “Jumper on Demand” concept said to speed production of larger volumes of jumpers by providing them in continuous pipe reels that can be cut to length onsite.

So far in 2026, the company has announced a new contract to supply two insulated carbon fiber/polyamide 12 TCP production jumpers for installation offshore East Malaysia, and a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with energy tech company Baker Hughes (Houston, Texas, U.S. and London, U.K.) to develop and quality a hybrid flexible pipe (HFP) for ultra-deepwater risers and flowline applications.

This HFP solution will combine Strohm’s TCP capabilities with Baker Hughes’ flexible pipe systems, which typically combine composite and metal materials. According to Strohm, the HFP being jointly developed is a lightweight (about 50% lighter than a conventional flexible pipe, Strohm claims), corrosion-resistant solution that can be deployed for flowline and riser applications in water depths exceeding 3,000 meters. The integrated solution is expected to become commercially available from 2028 onward.

In December 2025, composites technology specialist Cygnet Texkimp (Northwich, U.K.) announced that its high-speed robotic Multi-Axis Winder, developed in partnership with the University of Manchester (U.K.), has been commissioned by Canada-based pipeline technology company Total Containment Inc. (TCI, Alberta) to upgrade existing oil and gas pipelines. The machine will be used to wrap pipes in carbon fiber to reduce the leakage risks and enhance overall performance. For this purpose, TCI’s Multi-Axis Winder will be housed inside a purpose-designed modified shoring box called the “TCI-Crawler” which will be lowered into the pipeline trench to protect the pipeline, technology and operators while creating the preferred environment for executing winding.

Hydrogen transport. It’s also worth noting that companies are adapting TCP for transportation of hydrogen, including Strohm, which announced a completed testing program of its TCP for this purpose at Tüv-Süd in Germany, and Hive Composites (Loughborough, U.K.), which developed a hydrogen-specific TCP system using high-density polyethylene (HDPE) for both the inner and outer layers, augmented with glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) and other specialized barrier materials.