Onshore wind turbine manufacturer Nordex is participating in a sustainability project, funded by the European Union (EU), to drive the recycling of high-value materials from wind turbine blades.

Currently, 85% to 95% of a Nordex wind turbine is recyclable. For many of the materials used, there are established recycling processes for environment-friendly disposal, especially for steel and concrete, which make up the largest share of a wind turbine in the tower and foundation.

Further, turbine rotor blades consist of a combination of different materials such as wood, various metals, adhesives, paints and composites. The composites are glass-fibre-reinforced plastics, as well as carbon-fibre-reinforced plastics, the company says.

"Rotor blades are more challenging to recycle at the end of their life owing to the heterogeneity of the material and the strong adhesion between the fibres and polymers. Recycling processes for these materials are not yet fully established and use of recycled materials is not widespread," Nordex says.

It is participating in the sustainability project as one of the 18 partners, it notes ahead of the release its Nordex Group 2022 Sustainability Report.

Over the past few years, the Nordex Group has already reduced the carbon footprint of its wind turbines.

“In line with our group’s Sustainability Strategy 2025, ambitious goals have been set, including offering the market a fully recyclable blade within the next decade, with the target set for 2032,” says Nordex Energy South Africa MD Compton Saunders.

To reach this goal, Nordex has conducted and participated in a number of research and development projects, one of which is the European-funded 'Wind turbine blades End of Life through Open hubs for circular materials in sustainable business models', or EoLO-HUBS for short, he notes.

The general objective of the EoLO-HUBS project is to demonstrate and validate a set of innovative composite material recycling technologies which will provide answers to the three main areas involved in end-of-life wind farm recycling.

This includes decommissioning and pretreatment of wind turbine blades, sustainable fibre reclamation processes addressing two alternative routes, namely, low-carbon pyrolysis and green chemistry solvolysis, and upgrading processes for the recovered fibres addressing mainly glass fibres as well as carbon fibres, Saunders says.