FLSmidth is one of ten companies participating in a Danish project which is seeking to develop commercial and sustainable techniques for the recycling of wind turbine blades.
Ten partners in the three-year DecomBlade project have been awarded funding from Innovation Fund Denmark’s Grand Solutions programme to co-fund research and development.
The project partners are based in Denmark, but many operate all over the world and say they have the capability to implement solutions globally.
FLSmidth will investigate the possibilities of using shredded blade material and products from the pyrolysis process in the cement production process. Use of blade materials in cement production can decrease the environmental impact from cement production. As a knowledge and technology provider to the cement industry, FLSmidth’s main objective within the DecomBlades project is to evaluate possible solutions for incorporating blade materials in cement production on a global scale.
Today 85% to 95% of a wind turbine can be recycled, but cost-efficient recycling of composite materials remains a challenge. On a global scale, an estimated 2.5 million tonnes of composite materials are currently in use in wind turbines.
The wind power industry produces far less composite waste compared to other industries – such as the construction, electronic, transport and shipping industries – nonetheless it is an important objective for the wind power industry to ensure sustainable recycling solutions exist for all materials used in a wind turbine. As the wind power industry grows, the project members say that responsibility becomes even bigger.
John Korsgaard, LM Wind Power senior director of engineering excellence and chair of the DecomBlades steering committee, stated: “The wind power industry is committed to finding a sustainable way to dispose of these decommissioned wind turbine blades with respect to the environment, health and safety of workers, energy consumption and cost, and we simply don’t yet have solutions that meet all those criteria. To create viable, sustainable, cost-efficient solutions for recycling wind turbine blades, it is essential that composite materials from blades can be incorporated into similar resource streams and processed in the same facilities.”
In addition to FLSmidth, the other nine members of the cross-sector consortium behind DecomBlades are Ørsted, LM Wind Power – a GE renewable energy business, Vestas Wind Systems A/S, Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, MAKEEN Power, HJHansen Recycling, Energy Cluster Denmark (ECD), University of Southern Denmark (SDU) and Technical University of Denmark (DTU).
