How the choice of materials impacts the environmental footprint of wind turbine blades

In this comparative eco-design study, the environmental impact of LM’s 58.7 blade was assessed for multiple material composition and waste management scenarios. Material variations were largely focusses on the resin fraction of the blade. This is since the matrix has the biggest impact of all materials and has a big impact on the available waste management options that are available. Material and waste management scenarios were largely selected based on a literature review. This knowledge was combined with the knowledge and current direction of LM to determine the investigated scenarios. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology was applied to calculate the potential emissions and resulting environmental impacts. To calculate the impacts, the Ecoinvent 3.5 database was used in combination with the ReCiPe 2016 Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) methodology. Analysis showed that Sub Critical Water (SubCW) hydrolysis likely is the waste management method with the lowest impact for the current used glass fibre - polyester design. However, two design changes can potentially lead to big reductions in total single score impact scores. These two are: designing for reuse of blade sections and interchanging thermoplastic resin for the currently used thermoset polyester resin. Both are beneficial because of the relatively direct reuse/recycling of material. This research can be extended to more resin types and waste management methods of these resin types. This will shed a broader light on the matter. When waste management methods reuse methods should be prioritized over recycling methods and ’clean’ recycling methods (i.e. methods that do not lean on heavily polluting processes) over dirty recycling methods.European Wind Energy Masters (EWEM) ) | Rotor Design Trac