Circular economy and renewable energy infrastructure such as offshore wind farms are often assumed to be developed in synergy as part of sustainable transitions. Offshore wind is among the preferred technologies for low-carbon energy. Deployment is forecast to accelerate over ten times faster than onshore wind between 2021 and 2025, while the first generation of offshore wind turbines is about to be decommissioned. However, the growing scale of offshore wind brings new sustainability challenges. Many of the challenges are circular economy-related, such as increasing resource exploitation and competition and underdeveloped end-of-use solutions for decommissioned components and materials. However, circular economy is not yet commonly and systematically applied to offshore wind. Circular economy is a whole system approach aiming to make better use of products, components and materials throughout their consecutive lifecycles. The purpose of this study is to enable the integration of a sustainable circular economy into the design, development, operation and end-of-use management of offshore wind infrastructure. This will require a holistic overview of potential circular economy strategies that apply to offshore wind, because focus on no, or a subset of, circular solutions would open the sector to the risk of unintended consequences, such as replacing carbon impacts with water pollution, and short-term private cost savings with long-term bills for taxpayers. This study starts with a systematic review of circular economy and wind literature as a basis for the coproduction of a framework to embed a sustainable circular economy throughout the lifecycle of offshore wind energy infrastructure, resulting in eighteen strategies: design for circular economy, data and information, recertification, dematerialisation, waste prevention, modularisation, maintenance and repair, reuse and repurpose, refurbish and remanufacturing, lifetime extension, repowering, decommissioning, site recovery, disassembly, recycling, energy recovery, landfill and re-mining. An initial baseline review for each strategy is included. The application and transferability of the framework to other energy sectors, such as oil and gas and onshore wind, are discussed. This article concludes with an agenda for research and innovation and actions to take by industry and government.

A Framework and Baseline for the Integration of a Sustainable Circular Economy in Offshore Wind

The recycling of glass fibre thermoset composites in general and of wind turbine blades in particular has been investigated for many years but still remains challenging. In order to provide the reader with an overview of the challenges related to the end-of-life of wind turbine blades, this review first describes the chain of processes taking place when wind turbine blades end their service life. Key elements of this value chain are presented and discussed throughout the review. These include the estimation and prediction of the volume of wind turbine blade waste, the legislation and standards framing the processes of the value chain and the technical processes transforming wind turbine blades into new valuable materials and their applications. The review highlights the need of solutions addressing the entire value chain and ends with discussing the potentials of circular economy and life cycle engineering to facilitate the implementation of sustainable solutions. To provide a holistic picture of the sustainability of these solutions, the mechanisms of social acceptance and technology perception are also discussed. • End-of-life of blade is a complex value chain made of several steps and stakeholders. • Challenges exist from the decommissioning to the reuse of blade materials. • A holistic approach is needed to implement new recycling solutions. • Economic, technical, environmental, legislation and social aspects should be considered. 

The complex end-of-life of wind turbine blades: A review of the European context

The recycling of glass fibre thermoset composites in general and of wind turbine blades in particular has been investigated for many years but still remains challenging. In order to provide the reader with an overview of the challenges related to the end-of-life of wind turbine blades, this review first describes the chain of processes taking place when wind turbine blades end their service life. Key elements of this value chain are presented and discussed throughout the review. These include the estimation and prediction of the volume of wind turbine blade waste, the legislation and standards framing the processes of the value chain and the technical processes transforming wind turbine blades into new valuable materials and their applications. The review highlights the need of solutions addressing the entire value chain and ends with discussing the potentials of circular economy and life cycle engineering to facilitate the implementation of sustainable solutions. To provide a holistic picture of the sustainability of these solutions, the mechanisms of social acceptance and technology perception are also discussed.

The inherently advantageous geographical location of East and Southeast Asia provides a great potential for the development of diverse ocean energy technologies along its densely populated coastlines. This review paper focuses on the flexibility and feasibility of emerging ocean energy technologies in this region, including wave, tidal and ocean-current energy converters, floating photovoltaics, and offshore wind-turbines. Recent research on wave energy in the region has achieved advancements such as modifying oscillating water columns to exchange higher pneumatic energy, reshaping oscillating devices to capture more kinetic energy, and improving overtopping converters to absorb more incident waves. Regarding tidal energy, the paper reviews barrage-based and stream-based turbines and investigates the efficiency improvement, flexibility enhancement and adaptation to the unique regional features. Regarding ocean current energy, research on low-velocity turbines and optimized energy storage systems has made their application in the region more competitive. In addition, offshore deployments of floating photovoltaics have recently drawn the sector's attention and are beginning to emerge in the region, although their robustness against extreme weather and wave conditions should be addressed. Furthermore, compared to other ocean technologies, offshore wind technologies have attracted the most investment in the region. Due to the fluctuation of wind-energy generation, enhancing the energy flexibility to increase its grid penetration has become a recent focus in both the academic and industrial communities. However, despite the good research and demonstrations, most of the abovementioned ocean technologies still encounter considerable techno-economic and techno-environmental challenges that limit their competitiveness in the East and Southeast Asian markets. 

State-of-the-art review of the flexibility and feasibility of emerging offshore and coastal ocean energy technologies in East and Southeast Asia

Wind turbine blade wastes and the environmental impacts in Canada

Waste generation and end-of-life (EoL) management of wind power systems (WPSs) have attracted increasing attention as the number of decommissioned wind turbines continues to increase. In this study, we have addressed this issue by applying a technology-specific, component-by-component, and stock-driven prospective dynamic material flow analysis model in the case of Guangdong, a province in South China with high wind power potential. A particular improvement in our model includes the consideration of the foundation type for offshore wind turbines and the impact of water depth. We set three scenario combinations, high, medium, and low, to reveal the scale of material stocks and flows of wind power development in Guangdong from 1989 to 2050. We found that, as the escalating development of wind power continues (particularly offshore), the total waste generation has increased from 0 tons in 1989 to 24 kilotons in 2018, and will further increase to 1,200, 740, and 490 kilotons in 2050 under the high, medium, and low, scenario combinations, respectively. This indicates a growing demand for waste disposal capacity (particularly for recycling) in the future and a necessity to consider such EoL management issue (particularly for EoL blades) and circular economy strategies (e.g., material efficiency) associated with a much-needed ambitious wind energy development plan. We also argue that relevant EoL policy for WPSs (including Extended Producer Responsibility) should be in place in advance and feasible business models should be explored with joint efforts of wind, waste, and utility industries.

Xiaoling Qi

Papers

Modeling waste generation and end-of-life management of wind power development in Guangdong, China until 2050