Wind Industry decommissioning is a very different business to cessation of production and abandonment of oil and gas fields, whether on or offshore.
Broadly, Big Wind’s expectation is that most wind farm sites will evolve and grow in line with advances in turbine technology and society’s demand for more power; with operators seeking repowering and expansion consents for existing locations as necessary.
Wind turbines have a lifespan of about 25 years and many thousands of first generation onshore units are in line for the chop worldwide. They present a major recycling challenge, in particular blades.
This is an issue that is only now receiving the attention that governments and Big Wind should have dealt with decades ago; similarly the honest disposal of oil and gas infrastructure including, eventually, the forever plugging of literally millions of abandoned/orphaned production wells, many of them leaking.
So what is Big Wind actually doing about responsible decommissioning of redundant turbines? Solve the blades issue and wind turbines should become close to 100% recyclable.
Locally, an early estimate of the scale of the problem was published two years ago by Zero Waste Scotland.
Key findings included:
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Around 5,500 turbines will be decommissioned in Scotland (based on sites that were either consented, in construction or operational in 2020);
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By 2050 onshore wind decommissioning in Scotland could have generated between 1.25M – 1.4M tonnes of materials
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By weight, the biggest material waste arisings from wind turbine decommissioning will be ferrous metals (steel, iron) which are currently exported for recycling.
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The forecast includes over 60,000 tonnes of fibreglass and 90,000 tonnes of resin + balsa, materials all currently landfilled.
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