Re-wind hosts mini-symposium at the Wind Energy Science Conference, June 17-20, 2019, Cork, Ireland

Over 800 delegates gathered for the Wind Energy Science Conference, organised by the European Academy of Wind Energy and held at University College Cork from June 17th-June 20th

The ReWind project hosted a mini-symposium entitled “Making Wind Circular – End of life options for wind turbines and blades” at WESC. Re-Wind PhD student from QUB, Emma Delaney demonstrated the benefits of GIS for making better decisions on wind turbine end-of-life, and demonstrated the concepts using a novel live GIS storyline presentation. Heloisa Lemmertz of the UCC Re-Wind team then introduced the circular economy paradigm to the session, and discussed how it could be applied to develop new sustainable business models around end-of-life wind turbine blades. Angie Nagle, also of UCC Re-Wind, demonstrated her initial findings on life cycle impacts of conventional blade end-of-life options such as landfill and cement kiln co-processing. Justine Beauson of DTU Wind described the wind turbine aftermarked and discussed the GENVIND project. Anne Velenturf of the University of Leeds described the UK’s ambitious offshore wind targets and outlined sustainable approaches to decommissioning. The issue of wind turbine blade waste is increasingly attracting the attention of industry and academia alike, which was shown by the strong attendance of 40 delegates and the lively question-and-answer session.

Peter DeeneyJune 25, 2019