REFRESH partners Acciona and Gees Recycling are giving presentations at the International Symposium on Current Challenges of Wind Energy Development: Materials Science and Structural Aspects. The conference is taking place in Athens, Greece, on 13-15 May.

This objective of this symposium is to discuss materials science challenges for wind energy development in next decades, and the solutions necessary to ensure reliable and efficient growth of wind energy capacity. Lifetime extension of wind turbine blades, recycling and reuse of turbine parts, and sustainable design are key topics on the agenda.

Recycling wind blades

The REFRESH partners’ presentations feature in the opening session: Decarbonising – Recycling of Wind Turbine Blades.

  • Giorgio Betteto, R&D CTO, Gees Recycling, is presenting New products from wind blades recycling for circular economy in wind energy.
  • Anurag Bansal, Program, Technology Intelligence and Open Innovation Manager, Acciona, will discuss Creating value through recycling of end-of-service life wind turbine blades.

Gees Recycling and Acciona are part of the 11-strong consortium of the REFRESH project. REFRESH is developing a smart, circular concept for recycling composite materials from end-of-use blades. As part of the project, Gees is designing a new mechanical recycling line to transform composite materials from end-of-use blades into structural panels. Acciona will develop new products for construction applications using recycled blade materials.

Materials and design solutions

The International Symposium on Current Challenges of Wind Energy Development is organised in the framework of two projects: REFRESH sister project EU-funded Blades2Build: Recycle, repurpose and reuse end-of-life wind blades composites, and the Danish-Indian project Maintainergy: Maintenance and repair strategy for wind energy development.

The symposium also includes sessions on Advanced Computational Models of Materials for Wind Energy, Operation and Maintenance of Wind Turbines, Smart Materials and Biomimicking, Operation and Maintenance of Wind Turbines, Fatigue of Wind Turbine Blades: Extreme Loading, Repair, Inspection and Damage, Structural Aspects and Adhesive Joints, and New Materials and Design. The event concludes with a second session on recycling of turbine blades. More than 30 presentations will be delivered.