In 2020, a WindEurope report stated that 34,000 onshore wind turbines (36GW of capacity) were 15 years or older. Out of that 36GW, 9GW were 20-24 years old, and approximately 1GW were 25 years or older.1 The earliest onshore turbines have already reached the end of their operational lifespans, with some already being decommissioned or repowered.
Offshore wind isn’t far behind either, with over one-third of the UK’s offshore wind farms expected to reach the end of their originally anticipated operational design life by 2035.2
It’s clear that end-of-life planning needs to be an immediate priority for the wind sector. With policy firmly focused on getting gigawatts in the water, a shift is needed to ensure that when the time comes, those turbines have their lifetimes extended, are sustainably decommissioned, or repowered appropriately. For that to happen, we need to prepare the offshore wind supply chain to handle the decommissioning of these components and materials in the most environmentally sustainable manner.
Our default daily life has become a linear economy. We extract natural resources from the earth, manufacture them into products and use them until they break before throwing them away. However, a circular economy seeks to maximise and retain the value of these resources, reducing waste at every stage. This means we need to optimise designs to reduce waste during manufacture; repair and refurbishing rather than replace components during operational life; extend the working life of equipment and ensure that components are remanufactured and reused at decommissioning with materials being recovered and recycled at the end-of-life.
Back in 2023, we established the Circular Economy for the Wind Sector (CEWS) joint industry programme (JIP) as an industry-wide initiative to build the body of knowledge required to develop standard practice and guidance for the decommissioning of offshore wind farms.
Having initially launched with industry partners RWE, TotalEnergies and Equinor, we have recently welcomed EDF Renewables and Scottish Power Renewables to the consortium. In January this year we also opened a parallel CEWS Supply Chain programme to any organisations interested in supporting wind energy end-of-life activities, with hopes of uniting to develop sustainable practices across the board.
The CEWS JIP developed an example of what a component material passport for wind could look like. A tool used in various sectors to create a traceable and more transparent product lifecycle, material passports can enable informed decisions about reuse, recycling and sustainable end-of-life options.
We also developed the Turbine Recycling and Circular Economy (TRACE) Tool, as part of CEWS. The tool is a digital resource that can offer wind developers actionable insights into forecasting decommissioning requirements and planning for repurposing, reusing or recycling wind farm components and materials.
CEWS is focused on realising practical solutions to the decommissioning challenge, turning it from a problem to be resolved into a known and valuable source of material with component resources to be utilised. However, these systems can only be effective if fully adopted. We know that there are issued with the current rules on this, which can often stifle innovative solutions for the reuse, repair and recycling of components and materials3, we’re seeking to build a network to explore these regulatory and legislative barriers impacting innovation in the circular supply chain for wind.
The ‘Regulations to Ensure Sustainable Circular Use at End-of-Life for Wind” (RESCUE) project was set up last year to establish a comprehensive and robust end-of-life materials network for the wind sector.
The project began with a 6-month discovery phase, during which consultations with partners quickly reaffirmed that existing ‘end of waste’ rules were indeed not fit for purpose and, making the use of end-of-life materials in the development and manufacture of new products very difficult. However, the opportunity is clear. A circular economy is also a more resilient economy that could increase resource productivity by 3% annually, generate £10bn in gross value added and support up to 200,000 jobs by 2030.4 UK Government external analysis suggests circular economy policies have the potential to boost the economy by £18 billion a year, every year.5
The discovery phase conducted a review of the regulatory landscape and identified more than 150 governance pieces, across the main policy areas of planning, climate, energy, and resources and waste. The review, combined with the stakeholder survey, identified low policy integration and uncertainty about the roles of various regulators as key issues. In addition, there were gaps within the regulatory landscape pertaining to proactive measures for resources and waste from the planning stage onwards, and a demand for guidelines for the integrated application of existing regulations, as some aspects are managed centrally at a UK level, with others devolved to Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish Governments, in addition to international agreements that can also impact decision making.
The implementation phase of the RESCUE project is now well underway. We’re now taking these learnings and carrying out a 12-month strategic delivery plan that was developed during the discovery phase.
The next steps for the project include a review of the implementation of resources and waste management regulations for wind turbines, a gap analysis to assess the integration of these regulations in end-of-use governance and co-producing guidelines clarifying the roles of diverse environmental regulators.
Currently, we’re hosting four regional stakeholder workshops, one in each of the UK home nations of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. This process kicked off in early March with the London workshop as the network convened to propose solutions to the regulatory and policy challenges identified. The aim being to ultimately collate these regional perspectives with hopes of building that critical regulatory clarity.
- https://proceedings.windeurope.org/biplatform/rails/active_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–12f33b41ea74341077a21cbbe32b9cba874fe41f/WindEurope-decommissioning-of-onshore-wind-turbines.pdf
- https://www.renewableuk.com/media/bfcjsiwa/developing-effective-end-of-life-policy-frameworks-for-uk-offshore-wind.pdf
- Pro-Innovation_Regulation_of_Technologies_Review_-_Green_Industries_FINAL.pdf
- resource-productivity-and-the-circular.pdf
- https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/environment-secretary-steve-reed-circular-economy-speech