By: Franyi Sarmiento, Ph.D., Inspenet, August 4, 2022
The world’s first turbine equipped with recyclable blades has started generating clean energy at the Kaskasi offshore wind farm in Germany, a milestone in the sustainability strategy of Siemens-Gamesa and the offshore wind industry.
The blades are made of resin-bonded materials, resulting in a light and highly resistant structure.
The Kaskasi project, developed by German power utility RWE, will install 81-meter-long blades, some of them equipped with ‘RecyclableBlade’ technology. This technology allows shovel materials to be efficiently separated at the end of their useful life and reused in new applications after separation.
The project will be located 35 kilometers north of the island of Heligoland in the German North Sea. It will consist of 38 ‘SG 8.0-167 DD’ wind turbines, which will generate 342 megawatts (MW) of clean energy, enough to supply about 400,000 German households.
The CEO of Siemens Gamesa’s Offshore division, Marc Becker, said that this “impressive milestone is a further demonstration of our ability to bring the latest technologies to market and reflects the pace at which we must all act to combat the climate emergency,” as well as “a crucial step forward in the group’s ambition to have a fully recyclable wind turbine by 2040.”
Photo: Siemens
