A floating island made of rotor blades to reclaim land where previously there was only water and for wind turbine blade recycling. This is the vision that Vattenfall and cepezed from Delft are pursuing. After developing the concept since 2023, the first test trials have now begun. Read more here.

In 2021, Vattenfall set itself the target of recycling 50 percent of all wind turbine blades from its own wind farms by 2025. This proportion is then to be increased to 100 percent by 2030. “Expanding our recycling target is a crucial step towards achieving a circular business by 2030,” explains Eva Julius-Philipp, Director of Environment & Sustainability at Vattenfall BA Wind, in a press release issued by Vattenfall at the end of September this year. After around 20 to 30 years, wind turbines have reached the end of their service life and need to be dismantled. The elements to be dismantled range from rotor blades, nacelles, concrete towers and foundations to materials such as copper, aluminum, electronic scrap, rare earths and PVC.

Vattenfall’s aim is to ensure that all decommissioned turbine composite materials are processed using circular methods – either through reuse, refurbishment repurposing, and recycling. Julius-Philipp continues: “This will prevent composite waste from ending up in landfills and instead make it available for second-life applications. By addressing this now, we avoid the risk of these materials being lost for the circular economy.”

wind turbine blade recycling and more

To achieve this goal, Vattenfall is pursuing different approaches and working in various collaborations. At the Hollandse Kust Zuid offshore wind farm, for example, three sets of recyclable rotor blades from Siemens Gamesa are being tested, which are designed so that they can be easily recycled at the end of their life cycle and produce low carbon emissions. In other projects, Vattenfall is pursuing the goal of being able to reuse the materials with as few operations as possible. Thomas Hjort, Director of Innovation at Vattenfall, explains in an article on the company’s German-language website: “We are looking for innovative ways to reuse materials from used turbines as effectively as possible. So make something new out of it with as few adaptations as possible. This saves raw materials and energy consumption and ensures that these materials can be reused for many years after their first use.”

The concept study with Lloyd’s Arkitektkontor from Denmark, for example, which is working on the reuse of turbine blades for parking garages, goes in this direction. Equally creative are the solutions that Vattenfall had four invited design companies develop as part of the What if Lab at the Dutch Design Week. The aim was to think about a second life for wind turbines. A Dutch initiative with the company Superuse, for example, worked on transforming a nacelle, as the nacelle of a wind turbine is called, into a tinyhouse.

 Cepezed researches wind turbine blade recycling

In addition to the Tiny House, Vattenfall is realizing another project in which the rotor blades of a wind turbine play a key role. The concept was developed by the Delft-based architecture firm cepezed. cepezed specifically investigated new functions for the rotor blades of wind turbines. These are precisely tailored to catch the wind high in the air. Due to their complex material construction, however, they cannot be recycled – in the USA they are even buried, as the architects point out.  With this in mind, cepezed investigated how the rotors as a whole could be repurposed to utilize the unique features of a rotor blade while minimizing material waste.

At the end of their analysis and design process, they came up with the idea of using the rotors as floats and creating a floating island. In the IJsselmeer near Lelystad, not far from Amsterdam, a construction made from old rotor blades has now been launched into the water for testing. Due to the length, strength, hollow shape and low weight of the rotor blades of the turbines, the rotors are perfectly suited for repurposing. 

An island of rotor blades

What works with one component also applies to several. If you combine several blades, they can form an island whose surface area is suitable for different uses. For example, to build residential buildings, but also to create agricultural areas or solar parks. Long, narrow islands could serve as roads. According to cepezed’s calculations, the islands would be strong enough to support these functions. And thus a method of land reclamation. “Floating islands are entirely useful if sea levels continue to rise as predicted,” emphasize the architects at cepezed in the project description on their website. In the Netherlands, where land has always been reclaimed from the water through structural interventions, the development of such a concept does not sound too utopian.