DNV pilot paves way to a more sustainable wind turbine decommissioning

Høvik, Norway, 20 February 2024 - DNV, the independent assurance and risk management provider, has successfully run a pilot that uses a new digital service to increase the sustainability of wind turbine decommissioning.

ReWind automatically generates a decommissioning plan, such as where and how the blades can be recycled, based on data provided by the user. The pilot ran from June to October 2023 and included seven customers who added 55 projects in seven countries for a total of 7,830 MWs modeled. By using ReWind, customers saved an estimated 1,985 workdays and €680,000 compared to current non-digital solutions. The companies who took part in the pilot included Ørsted, SSE, and Energia.

Presenting a credible plan for the decommissioning process has become a pre-requisite for the bidding process of many wind auctions, as the industry looks to improve the lifecycle of turbines. Currently, decommissioned wind turbines are often buried underground. As more turbines reach their end of life, this issue is set to escalate. WindEurope estimates that 25 thousand tonnes of wind turbine blades will have to be recycled by 2025, and 52 thousand tonnes by 2030.

“The wind power industry will encounter serious reputational and credibility challenges if it cannot find a sustainable solution to turbine decommissioning,” said Matthew Geraghty, ReWind Founder, DNV. “As the industry matures, presenting an end-of-life plan is becoming essential to the commissioning process, and our pilot demonstrates that taking a digital approach saves times and money,” added Geraghty.

ReWind provides a platform for the tools and resources needed to manage and plan the end-of-life processes for their wind farms effectively. The service facilitates a more sustainable approach to wind energy development and supports customers in achieving their sustainability goals. Input from ReWind’s customers has led to significant enhancements, including expanding its scope beyond decommissioning to support various applications like bidding and repowering, extending services to offshore projects, and improving detail in turbine modeling and cost calculations.

Johan Schoovonen, pilot customer and Senior Circularity Specialist at Ørsted, said: “We joined ReWind as we saw exciting potential in this new service from DNV. ReWind's easy to use, market leading decommissioning and recyclability software provides material breakdown assessments of our windfarms along with automated decommissioning cost assessments. We believe this industry leading platform can enable us to calculate the residual value of our assets and maximize the circularity of our projects, whilst unlocking significant time savings.”

DNV’s ReWind team is now looking to expand beyond the pilot and is calling for companies to pay closer attention to the full lifecycle of their projects.

“The results of the ReWind pilot are highly encouraging, and I urge other stakeholders in the industry to work with us to further improve circularity,” said Geraghty.