(Reuters) – Spanish turbine maker Siemens Gamesa said on Tuesday it has started producing recyclable offshore wind turbine blades for commercial use.
Wind turbine blades are generally large and non-recyclable and at the end of their service end up in huge landfills that have started attracting environmentalists’ attention.
Rival Vestas in May unveiled technology enabling wind turbine blades to be fully recycled, but Siemens Gamesa claimed in its statement on Tuesday that it was the first company to produce recyclable blades.
Wind turbine blades are made with resins that tie together their different materials. Siemens Gamesa, which produces blades up to 125 metres long, uses a resin with a special chemical structure that allows it to separate the other materials, which can then be reused, it said.
The unit of Siemens Energy said it has already reached agreements to sell recyclable blades to three utilities Germany’s RWE, France’s EDF and Britain’s Western Power Distribution.
(Reporting by Aida Pelaez-Fernandez, editing by Inti Landauro and Susan Fenton)
