Siemens Gamesa announced that RWE has installed Siemens Gamesa RecyclableBlade for its Kaskasi wind power project in Germany in July 2022.
“Launching our RecyclableBlade for onshore sites is an outstanding achievement from our professionals. The concept was foreseen to encompass solutions for offshore and onshore, and we’re pleased to now provide them commercially to our customers in both market segments,” said Jochen Eickholt, CEO of Siemens Gamesa.
“We are driving the wind industry towards full circularity with our commitment to make wind power as sustainable as it can be at every stage of its lifetime,” said Tim Dawidowsky, Siemens Gamesa COO and Chief Sustainability Officer.
Prior to the launch of Siemens Gamesa’s RecyclableBlade in 2021, blade recyclability was an issue for the wind power industry. The complex production process for blades, involving composite materials including resin, glass and carbon fibers, made disposal at the end of the wind turbine’s lifecycle challenging. While around 85 percent of a wind turbine can be fully recycled, many blades were sent to landfill upon decommissioning.
Siemens Gamesa is working with industry body WindEurope and other major industry players in calling for a Europe-wide ban on landfill for blades.
The RecyclableBlade recovery process uses a mild acidic solution to separate the materials at the end of the wind turbine’s lifetime. Those materials can then be recycled for use in other industrial applications like construction, consumer goods, or the automotive industry.