Slashing Through the Blade: Exploring practical perceptions of wind turbine blade circular innovations
(2024) IMEM01 20241The International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics
- Abstract
- Wind energy has been established since before the 2000s and has experienced significant growth, particularly influenced by documents like the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement, which shaped global perspectives on sustainability. While wind energy has contributed to desired sustainability goals outlined in these documents, it still confronts numerous challenges regarding circularity and achieving sustainable end-of-life management with current technologies such as composite materials. This qualitative study addresses these challenges by examining wind turbine blade lifecycles and stakeholder perspectives on implementing circularity models, such as product-as-a-service, to combat issues like improper disposal. Thirteen practitioners... (More)
- Wind energy has been established since before the 2000s and has experienced significant growth, particularly influenced by documents like the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement, which shaped global perspectives on sustainability. While wind energy has contributed to desired sustainability goals outlined in these documents, it still confronts numerous challenges regarding circularity and achieving sustainable end-of-life management with current technologies such as composite materials. This qualitative study addresses these challenges by examining wind turbine blade lifecycles and stakeholder perspectives on implementing circularity models, such as product-as-a-service, to combat issues like improper disposal. Thirteen practitioners from the wind turbine market, including OEMs, Wind Operators, and Recycling Facilities, were interviewed to assess the barriers and drivers of circular practices within the industry, as well as perceptions of the product-as-a-service model. The study identified various challenges perceived by stakeholders across economic, infrastructure/product features, collaborative, and legislative settings. Economic and collaborative actions emerged as more significant than legislative and infrastructure/product features actions, although the latter remain significant but received less emphasis during interviews. Furthermore, the study revealed that while the product-as-a-service model demonstrates maturity in certain aspects in the wind market, challenges such as economic competition, lack of partnerships, and economic dissatisfaction in recycling facilities impede its full realization. The need for a framework prioritizing a transversal view in collaboration and economic factors while narrowing down policy and infrastructure/product features will benefit the implementation of circular practices and is essential in wind turbine blades. Regarding product-as-a-service, this is a very immature model where standardization of the product and design changes are needed to begin defining the requirements of this model in the market before setting the ambition to look into the development, implementation, and monitoring. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9171238
- author
- Rojas Arias, Daniel LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- IMEM01 20241
- year
- 2024
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- Circular economy, Product as a service, End-of-life-Management, Wind turbine blades, Wind Energy.
- report number
- 2024.06
- ISSN
- 1401-9191
- language
- English
- id
- 9171238
- date added to LUP
- 2024-08-09 10:02:25
- date last changed
- 2024-08-09 10:02:25
@misc{9171238,
abstract = {{Wind energy has been established since before the 2000s and has experienced significant growth, particularly influenced by documents like the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement, which shaped global perspectives on sustainability. While wind energy has contributed to desired sustainability goals outlined in these documents, it still confronts numerous challenges regarding circularity and achieving sustainable end-of-life management with current technologies such as composite materials. This qualitative study addresses these challenges by examining wind turbine blade lifecycles and stakeholder perspectives on implementing circularity models, such as product-as-a-service, to combat issues like improper disposal. Thirteen practitioners from the wind turbine market, including OEMs, Wind Operators, and Recycling Facilities, were interviewed to assess the barriers and drivers of circular practices within the industry, as well as perceptions of the product-as-a-service model. The study identified various challenges perceived by stakeholders across economic, infrastructure/product features, collaborative, and legislative settings. Economic and collaborative actions emerged as more significant than legislative and infrastructure/product features actions, although the latter remain significant but received less emphasis during interviews. Furthermore, the study revealed that while the product-as-a-service model demonstrates maturity in certain aspects in the wind market, challenges such as economic competition, lack of partnerships, and economic dissatisfaction in recycling facilities impede its full realization. The need for a framework prioritizing a transversal view in collaboration and economic factors while narrowing down policy and infrastructure/product features will benefit the implementation of circular practices and is essential in wind turbine blades. Regarding product-as-a-service, this is a very immature model where standardization of the product and design changes are needed to begin defining the requirements of this model in the market before setting the ambition to look into the development, implementation, and monitoring.}},
author = {{Rojas Arias, Daniel}},
issn = {{1401-9191}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Slashing Through the Blade: Exploring practical perceptions of wind turbine blade circular innovations}},
year = {{2024}},
}