The REFRESH webinar on 17th November brought together an audience of more than 90 industry and research professionals to learn about the project’s innovative technologies for recycling end-of-service wind turbine blades.

The presentations offered an overview of each technology in the value chain, the challenges to be addressed, and the innovations REFRESH is developing.

FAQs were discussed and questions from the audience were addressed in a Q&A session.

Webinar recording

The webinar recording is now available on the REFRESH YouTube channel.

WATCH NOW.

Scaling up recycling technologies for wind turbine blades

The workshop presented the progress being made by the EU-funded REFRESH project, which is aiming to develop and demonstrate a novel smart, circular system enabling improved recycling of glass fibre reinforced composite materials from turbine blades.

The event focused on the first part of the REFRESH value chain. Presentations covered:

Blade preparation for recycling

  • Smart blade cutting – Jean-Baptiste Strehaiano, Wind Power Business Manager, ETAT9 (France);
  • Shredding and sorting technologies – Dr Guilhem Grimaud, Leader Eco-Innovation, MTB Group (France).

Composites recycling processes

  • Mechanical recycling – Giorgio Betteto, R&D CTO, Gees Recycling (Italy);
  • Advanced thermal recycling – Marcin Rusin, CEO, Gjenkraft (Norway);
  • Microwave-assisted pyrolysis – Dr Ignacio Julian, Microwave Technology Manager, CIRCE (Spain);
  • Treatment of non-recyclable dust and fines – Jan Kaspar, CTO, Enecolab (Italy).

The regulatory landscape was also examined in the final presentation Blade circularity: the regulatory challenges by Raphael Pleynet, Managing Director of the European Composites Industry Association (EuCIA).

Project coordinator Daniel Grisenti of RINA Consulting hosted the meeting and partners ACCIONA, CETMA and TECNALIA were also available to answer questions.

The presentations are available to download from the REFRESH Publications page.

Sustainable solutions

A preliminary LCA study has recently highlighted the potential environmental benefits of the REFRESH recycling processes.

REFRESH is also developing a range of products using the recycled materials resulting from these processes, as well as a block chain traceability platform covering the complete value chain. These aspects of the project will be covered in a second webinar in 2026.

Learn more about the REFRESH concept.