Part 1: Providing a Baseline for America’s Wind Energy Recycling Infrastructure for Wind Turbines and Systems
For this report, a team of researchers at DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories performed a comprehensive life cycle and techno-economic assessment of end-of-life management pathways of U.S. wind turbines and systems. They evaluated the technical, environmental, and economic indicators for different materials, designs, and recycling technologies.
The research shows that the United States could maximize the recyclability of wind turbines by:
- Improving end-of-life decommissioning and sorting practices
- Ensuring strategic siting of recycling facilities
- Expanding and improving recovery and recycling infrastructure
- Substituting hard-to-recycle or critical materials with more easily separable and affordable materials, or improved component designs and manufacturing techniques
- Developing of modular component designs
- Optimizing properties of recovered materials for second-life applications
- Ensuring greater access for the U.S. recycling infrastructure to utilize waste streams from the wind energy sector, and the equipment required to disassemble wind energy components.
One possible step to improve recycling for utility-scale energy systems is to increase the dedicated infrastructure needed to recycle the anticipated volume of fiber-reinforced composites in blades and the rare-earth materials and electrical steel found in turbine generators. Another step is to develop more reliable high-performance power electronic devices, such as inverters to extend their lifespans.
In addition to reducing emissions related to the recycling process, these measures could also reduce recycling costs, boost the U.S. economy, and position the United States to be a world leader in environmental sustainability. In addition, by increasing and verifying the quality of recycling outputs, the U.S. wind energy industry could help raise consumer confidence in upcycled products.
Short-, medium-, and long-term research, development, and demonstration investment recommendations along the life cycle of wind energy systems are also provided in support of these findings.
