The EU is facing a significant restructuring of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) to achieve climate neutrality goals by 2050. In this conversion phase, wind energy is one popular and applicable RES. Wind Europe expects that European wind energy generation will expand from 200 GW to 2,300 GW in the following 30 years0F0F by using larger and more resistant blade structures (the capacity of wind turbines will increase from 5-10 MW to over 25 MW). At the Wind Europe event in Bilbao in April 2022, it was announced that due to the current geopolitical situation in Ukraine, this transition from fossil fuels to wind energy will be accelerated. This radical conversion to wind energy will lead to major challenges for the industry regarding affordability, security, sustainability, and efficiency. Therefore, the consortium bases the excellence of BLADES2BUILD on three tiers:
• BLADES2BUILD acts as a vital information and collaboration-driven ecosystem through a well-established Knowledge Hub for identification and synchronisation of functional requirements of advanced technologies and systems on digitalisation and automation, as well as possible frameworks/concepts and standards for sustainable waste management of wind energy systems by bringing together policymakers, NGOs, end-users, energy service providers, and energy-related IT industry on local, regional, national, and EU levels.
• BLADES2BUILD creates a vision-oriented road map for standardisation of circularity of End-Of-Life (EOL) wind turbine blades by validating with specific business scenarios (e.g. considering mobile recycling system giving on-site waste management services) in a close alignment with the European energy-related research and innovation policies.
• BLADES2BUILD, with the involvement of key stakeholders from different demographic, geographic, cultural, and societal backgrounds in Europe, will facilitate raising awareness about the requirements, challenges, and opportunities of automation, digitalisation, and standardisation of processes in composite material recycling technologies through demonstrating tailor-made flexible processing system for recycling of turbine blades as well as other composite materials to introduce and promote interoperability, adaptability and dynamicity in modern sustainable data-driven circular wind energy systems.
Through a carefully orchestrated programme of structured collaborative activities and engagement exercises via open science activities and business scenarios, this awareness will be channelled into BLADES2BUILD deliverables (a set of technical reports and roadmaps, flexible processing line, innovative final products, etc.) that will be widely disseminated to intrinsically inspire better policies, conception of open source, innovative and resilient circular solutions for sustainable wind energy activities, more visible and standardised services, creation of enhanced or new market opportunities and business models under innovative recycling systems.
