This document supports IEA Wind Task 45: Recycling Wind Turbine Blades, focusing on opportunities to reuse, repurpose, recycle, and recover materials from end-of-life blades. It brings together insights from a dedicated workshop and expert meetings with leading researchers and industry specialists in blade design, materials, recycling technologies, and wind farm operations.
The report highlights key considerations for assessing blade recyclability and outlines design principles that can help improve the future circularity of wind turbine blades.
Design for Reuse & Recycling
To better understand how wind turbine blades can be designed for recycling, we gathered insights from experts in the IEA Wind Task 45 network. Initial ideas were collected through online discussions, resulting in a shared overview of design goals and potential solutions.
Building on this foundation, we hosted a workshop in November 2023 at the National Composites Centre in Bristol, where participants developed and shared blade redesign concepts. These inputs were then analysed to distinguish between two key elements:
- Design aims – the goals behind making blades easier to recycle
- Design aspects – the practical ways to achieve those goals in blade development
We used an evolving coding approach to review the proposals. The starting framework was based on Joustra et al. (2021), and was expanded as new themes and ideas emerged from the workshop. This process allowed us to create a comprehensive list of blade-design strategies that align practical design features with intended recycling outcomes.
Who is this report for?
This guide serves three core audiences:
- Project developers, owners, and operators – to help assess recyclability in both existing and future blade technologies.
- Designers, engineers, and manufacturers – to support the development of next-generation blades with circular design in mind.
- Decommissioning teams and recyclers – to help evaluate the best recovery and material-processing pathways.
Overall, this document offers a structured and practical framework for improving blade end-of-life strategies and supporting a more circular wind energy sector.
The full report is available from the Zenodo repository:
Joustra, J., Beauson, J., Ludwig, N., Czichon, S., Fuller, J., Andrews, T., Carla, D. L., Frid, G., Meng, F., & Harald, V. D. M. M. (2024). IEA Wind Task 45 – Deliverable 2.3 – Evaluating Recyclability of wind turbine blades – Suggestions for an evaluation scheme. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10941922