What happens to decommissioned wind turbines and blades? Some are finding new life as buildings.
Europe is on track for a record wind year, with 8.8 GW of new capacity installed in the first half of 2026 – a 30 per cent jump year on year.
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That’s enough electricity to power around seven million European households and replace fossil fuel imports equivalent to 25 LNG tankers a year, according to industry nonprofit WindEurope.
But every turbine that goes up eventually means one coming down – and manufacturers are still working out how to make sure none of the materials go to waste.
Up to 90 per cent of a wind turbine’s mass is made of easily recyclable materials like steel, copper, aluminium and concrete. Composite materials, which make up the majority of blades, are more problematic.
“Separating the composite materials from the resin requires specialised processes, often involving high temperatures or other energy-intensive treatment methods,” Eva Julius-Philipp, Director of Environment and Sustainability of Business Area Wind at Vattenfall, tells Euronews Earth. “In some cases, these processes can affect the quality and value of the recovered materials, making large-scale recycling more challenging.”
Since introducing a landfill ban on blades, nacelle covers and nose cones in 2021, the Swedish company has come up with some creative alternatives.
From blades to buildings: Turbine components get a second wind
From the ground, it’s hard to appreciate just how large wind turbines are. Putting it into perspective, Vattenfall teamed up with design studio Superuse to turn a retired wind turbine nacelle cover – which houses the mechanical and electrical equipment – into a compact living space.
Four metres wide, 10 metres long and three metres high, the box once sat atop an Austrian wind tower. It’s now a tiny house fitted with a kitchen, bathroom and living space equipped with a heat pump, solar panels and a solar water heater.
It was showcased at Dutch Design Week in 2024 as part of an initiative exploring how materials could be reused with as little energy and emissions-intensive processing as possible.
Blades, too, have been re-envisioned as building materials. After being decommissioned in 2023, the 57 blades from Danish onshore wind farm Nørre Økse Sø found new life as a facade for a multistorey carpark in the city of Lund.
It’s opened the door to a multitude of inventive uses for retired blades, from frames for solar panels to alpine skis.
“Projects such as the Tiny House, blade-based building projects and recycled skis are not yet a large-scale solution, however they are intended to help us gain experience, develop new applications and stimulate the market for circular solutions,” says Julius-Philipp.
Provided it’s safe to do so, extending the operational lifetime of existing components through reuse and refurbishment is the preferred option, she adds.
Recycling wind turbine blades: A multilayered challenge
Wind turbine blades can be between 50 and 100 metres long and are designed to spin in harsh weather for up to 25 years. What makes them so durable is also what makes them difficult to recycle: materials such as glass fibre, carbon fibre, epoxy resin, balsa wood, metals and various fillers pressed tightly together in layers.
Aiming to achieve 100 per cent circularity for these composite materials by 2030, Vattenfall is working on new ways of reusing, repurposing, refurbishing and recycling blades.
“When composite materials cannot be recycled at a high value, they can be processed through energy recovery and/or cement co-processing,” says Julius-Philipp.
Currently, Vattenfall uses mechanical recycling processes to turn blade material into composite flakes or fillers for new products, while pyrolysis – a thermal recycling process – recovers fibres and other secondary materials.
But technology isn’t the only challenge: “Decommissioned blades do not become available in a steady and predictable flow, which makes it harder for recycling solutions to scale economically,” adds Julius-Philipp.
As the first generation of major European wind farms reaches the end of its operational lifespan in the coming years, more blades will enter retirement, increasing the need for solutions that are “scalable, cost-efficient and low in energy use,” she adds.
The EU has not yet enforced a ban on landfilling decommissioned blades. Only Austria, Finland, Germany and the Netherlands have their own binding national bans, and WindEurope is now pushing Brussels to make the commitment legally binding across all member states.
“What is needed now is a regulatory framework that enables circular value chains and secondary raw materials to scale,” says Julius-Philipp, who hopes the European Commission’s Circular Economy Act, expected to be proposed later this year, will help provide it.
Designed to recycle: The future of turbine blades?
Increasingly, manufacturers are taking end-of-life into consideration when designing turbine blades.
Siemens Gamesa’s RecyclableBlades, which are used at Vattenfall’s offshore windfarm Hollandse Kust Zuid (HKZ) in the Netherlands, are one example.
These blades use a resin type that dissolves in a low-temperature, mildly acidic solution. This separates the resin from the other materials in the blade: fiberglass, carbon fiber, plastic, wood and metal, without significantly impacting their properties – allowing for a broader use of the recycled materials in new high-quality products.
“While recyclable blades are not yet widely adopted, we see growing emphasis on developing technologies that enable more efficient blade recycling and help retain the value and quality of the recovered materials,” says Julius-Philipp.
