Wind turbine end-of-life options based on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Abstract

The installed wind power capacity is rapidly growing worldwide, and large volumes of waste materials would need to be treated due to the decommissioning of wind turbine systems in the next years. The purpose of the present work is to evaluate the sustainability performance of decommissioning options for wind turbines and suggest policies to improve the sustainability of the wind turbine end-of-life phase by jointly applying Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) methodologies. Unlike most of the relevant literature, which focuses mainly on technical aspects of wind turbine decommissioning, the proposed approach considers all three dimensions of sustainability using Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a guide to identify economic, environmental, and social indicators. The methodology is applied to a representative case study of a wind turbine operating in the Greek territory using real data. Repurposing was found to be the most sustainable end-of-life alternative for composite waste. In contrast, the waste treatment option of the foundation concrete contributes substantially to the sustainability performance of the examined scenario. The sustainability performance of these technologies could be enhanced by the operation of dedicated concrete and composite materials recycling facilities close to wind parks, following cross-sectoral approaches. The results also indicate that the social aspects of the sustainability framework are equally important and should be considered when strategies towards more sustainable waste management of wind turbine systems are designed.