Vestas looks to scale up blade recycling partnership solution offering to U.S. and other regions

Vestas (Aarhus, Denmark) reports that it has been delivering a blade recycling partnership solution for several wind farm operators across the U.S. In addition, the sustainable energy solutions company is open to offering the solution in more regions where local recycling infrastructure is robust, and customer demand can be established.

One of Vestas’ first large-scale project under this offering was successfully completed in September 2021, and saw Vestas service teams decommission and recycle 10 turbine blades. Several ongoing projects are currently in progress across multiple sites, including the 151-megawatt (MW) Blue Canyon II Wind Farm repowering project, as well as the 63-MW Snyder Wind project with Enel Green Power (Rome, Italy). Recycling of the decommissioned blades was a firm requirement from the operators of both projects. At present, all ongoing recycling projects in the U.S. have reached a scale of 285 turbines blades in total, including nacelle covers and hub covers.

As part of its solution, Vestas teams scope an optimal recycling project plan to align with locally available solutions and customer needs. The recyclable glass fiber material is separated from the turbine, cut into transportable units and is transported to vetted recycling partners, using a glass fiber recycling method that aligns with the customer’s sustainability ambitions. Recycling methods can include cement co-processing, gasification, forming new composite materials and reclaiming glass and carbon fibers.

“Nurturing a robust recycling infrastructure to support the waste management challenge across the renewables industry is an urgent and critical issue. Glass fiber recycling methods are now at a point where they can be scaled up rapidly, and with renewable plant owners becoming increasingly conscious of the environmental impact of their decommissioned assets, it’s no longer a question of demand or volume,” says  Lisa Ekstrand, senior director and head of Sustainability, Vestas. “At Vestas, we’re ready to support the scaling up of glass fiber recycling worldwide, leveraging our global transport and logistics footprint, and we’re ready to offer recycling partnership solutions wherever we see an opportunity with local recycling partners and where it is valued by customers.”

To help drive more maturity in industrial recycling, Vestas is currently part of the DecomBlades project, a cross-sector initiative striving to increase the adoption of recycling practices by developing pathways for commercialization. As global installed capacity of renewables is set to increase significantly over the coming decade, Vestas is also working to support the adoption of a circular economy across the renewables industry. Vestas is currently spearheading the CETEC project, a consortium of academic and industry leaders, aiming to commercialize a new circularity technology for wind turbine blades.

Vestas is accelerating recycling solutions as part of its service offering as market conditions around waste management continue to evolve. With a 52,000 tons of blades waste predicted to exist by 2050 in Europe, and more than two million tons in the U.S. by 2050, the company says the need for scalable recycling pathways is increasing. This awareness can be seen in Europe, where the wind industry has called for a ban on landfill use for turbine blades by 2025; regulation around waste management and circularity practices is also tightening in some markets