Speaker
Description
To ensure an adequate safety and reliability for offshore wind turbines, their designs must be acceptable from an environmental and economic point of view. With an average lifespan of 20-25 years, many of the world’s offshore wind turbines installed during the 1990-2000s, are now reaching the end of their design lifetime. In this connection, understanding and addressing the technical challenges that the wind energy sector faces is pivotal for sustainable integration of offshore wind energy into the broader energy landscape. Circular economy stands at the forefront of the global energy transition, offering an array of promising opportunities. However, this is a complex problem that requires consideration of environmental, economic, and social aspects. Besides, due to lack of a proper end-of-life management planning, it is not clear how circularity for now existing wind turbines has to be accounted for, whether decommissioning/ reuse of components or potential life-time extension is more feasible. There are also some growing concerns that how and to what degree the climate change and in particular the occurrence of extreme weather events will impact on future design of offshore structures and operation. This will also impact the decision on the lifetime extension or recycling of components.
The present study reviews the state-of-the-art circularity of offshore wind turbines in view of design requirements. The definition of circular economy for potential end-of-life strategies are discussed, and the various sources of uncertainty influencing the safe design of offshore wind turbines are described. Emphasis is on the life-time extension and their potential implications on system-based reassessment of offshore wind turbines.
| Keywords | Circular economy, Sustainability, Offshore wind turbines, end-of-life management, lifetime extension |
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| Topics | Circular economy, Wind energy structures, Sustainable infrastructures |
