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Worldwide, wind turbine stocks are ageing and questions of reuse and recycling particularly of rotor blades become urgent. Especially, rising rotor blade wastes face lacking good recycling options and exact quantification is difficult due to information gaps on the rotor blade size, mass and exact material composition. In a combined approach, the expected rotor blade waste is quantified and localized on a national level for Germany until 2040. Fibre-reinforced plastics (FRP) from rotor blades are in focus and differentiated into two material classes : glass-fibre reinforced plastics (GFRP) and glass- and carbon-fibre reinforced plastics (GFRP/CFRP). The quantification approach is based on a national power plant stock database (Marktstammdatenregister) and regression models, combined with a power class-based estimation for missing datasets. As a result, between 325,726 and 429,525 t of waste from the GFRP material class and between 76,927 t and 211,721 t of waste from the GFRP/CFRP material class arise from obsolete rotor blades in Germany until 2040. This corresponds to a share of between 11% and 32% of wind turbines with GFRP/CFRP rotor blade material in Germany. For GFRP, waste peaks in 2021, 2035 and 2037 are expected with around 40,000 t of waste per year. For GFRP/CFRP, waste peaks in 2036 and 2037 will induce more than 20,000 t/a. Mostly affected federal states are Lower Saxony, Brandenburg, North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein. The methods are applicable and transferable to other countries, particularly with ageing wind turbines fleets.
Volk et al. (Wed,) studied this question.