GE Renewable Energy said it would manufacture zero waste wind turbine blades by the year 2030, becoming the latest wind turbine maker in the sector to try to develop more sustainable production processes.
Denmark-headquartered LM Wind Power subsidiary would reuse, repurpose, recycle or recover all the excess materials from manufacturing of blades, giving up on landfilling and incineration as waste management solutions.
The LM Wind Power announcement only relates to waste from the manufacturing process and does not cover what happens to the blades when their service life ends.
In September, Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy launched the world’s first recyclable wind turbine blades ready for commercial use offshore.
A few months earlier, in June, Denmark’s Orsted said it would “reuse, recycle, or recover” all turbine blades in its worldwide portfolio of wind farms once decommissioned.
GE Renewable Energy and cement manufacturer Holcim strike a deal to explore the recycling of wind turbine blades.
Vestas in January 2020 said it was aiming to produce “zero-waste” wind turbines by the year 2040.
GE Renewable Energy has installed more than 400+ gigawatts of clean renewable energy and equipped more than 90 percent of utilities worldwide with its grid solutions. GE Renewable Energy has nearly 40,000 employees in more than 80 countries.