What Do You Do With End-of-Life Wind Turbines?

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What do you do with end-of-life wind turbines? - Technology Org:

Wind turbines are designed to last at least 20 years. However, they may often work far beyond their estimated service life if properly maintained. Sooner or later, however, they will be so marked by wind and weather that they must be taken out of use. And that time has now come for the first large generation of energy-producing wind turbines.

Most parts of the turbine can be reused without problems. Reuse is more problematic when it comes to blades made of composite materials consisting of glass fibres held together by a strong glue like epoxy.

According to a statement from the European Technology and Innovation Platform on Wind Energy (ETIPWind), there will be around 66,000 tonnes of end-of-life wind turbine blades in Europe in 2025, and intensive work is currently being done to find out how they can be given new life rather than simply being deposited in landfills. It is, in fact, not a very good idea to incinerate them as ordinary waste, because it leaves a lot of ash and many fiberglass particles.

Development Engineer Justine Beauson is a materials scientist at DTU. For several years, her field of research has been what to do with end-of-life wind turbine blades. For example, Justine can describe how wind turbine blades-or various parts of them-have been used as exciting structures in playgrounds and- in crushed form-as reinforcement in concrete, as fillers in noise attentuation screens, and the like.

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