Sustainable End-of-Life Management of Wind Turbine Blades: Overview of Current and Coming Solutions

Various scenarios of end-of-life management of wind turbine blades are reviewed. Reactive strategies, designed to deal with already available, ageing turbines, installed in the 2000s, are discussed, among them, maintenance and repair, reuse, refurbishment and recycling. The main results and challenges of pro-active strategies, designed to ensure recyclability of new generations of wind turbines, are discussed. Among the main directions, the wind turbine blades with thermoplastic and recyclable thermoset composite matrices, as well as wood, bamboo and natural fiber-based composites were reviewed. It is argued that repair and reuse of wind turbine blades, and extension of the blade life has currently a number of advantages over other approaches. While new recyclable materials have been tested in laboratories, or in some cases on small or medium blades, there are remaining technological challenges for their utilization in large wind turbine blades.

Automated summary

Various scenarios of wind turbine blade end-of-life management are reviewed, including reactive strategies for ageing turbines and proactive strategies for recyclability of new generations. Currently, repair and reuse of blades and extending their life are considered advantageous, but there are technological challenges in using new recyclable materials in large wind turbine blades.