North Sea wind turbine blades could get second life as car parts and suitcases

Wind turbine blades destined to extract energy from raw elemental forces above the North Sea could one day be turned into car parts, bike helmets or suitcases, thanks to the use of a recyclable material.

The rotor blades, being installed on half of the turbines in RWE’s Sofia offshore wind farm at Dogger Bank, are made using a resin that can be broken down into its component parts and recycled into new products.

Half of the recyclable blades have been fitted at the facility, energy multinational RWE announced last week, with turbine manufacturer Siemens Gamesa continuing installation throughout the rest of the year.

“This installation represents an important moment for RWE and Sofia,” said Thomas Michel, chief operating officer of RWE Offshore Wind. “Deploying recyclable blades at this scale is an indicator of RWE’s drive to deliver sustainability across its renewables fleet.”

The first large-scale installation of recyclable blades at a UK offshore wind farm is a “major landmark”, said Darren Davidson, vice-president of Siemens Gamesa UK. “This is a great example of how we can share knowledge and work together to deliver on both energy security and a net zero future.”

The deployment builds on RWE’s world-first installation of the Siemens Gamesa blades at the company’s Kaskasi offshore wind farm in Germany.

Located 195km off the North East coast, the Sofia wind farm will have a total capacity of 1.4 gigawatts when fully installed. Using Siemens Gamesa 14-222 turbines with 108 metre-long turbine blades and a 222 metre rotor diameter, the facility could power approximately 1.2 million UK homes from next year.

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