Written by: Collin Fields, Marketing & Communications Manager, OWA
As offshore wind matures into a global power industry, attention is shifting from installation to what happens decades later; when turbines, cables, and foundations reach the end of their design lives. Decommissioning once felt like a distant problem, but the first generation of European offshore projects is already approaching retirement. Meanwhile, developers and OEMs are under pressure to show that offshore wind is not just low-carbon, but circular and sustainable across its entire life cycle.
Europe’s offshore wind sector is expanding at record pace, yet the industry now faces a parallel challenge that is just as important as building new capacity. The earliest generation of wind farms are reaching the end of their operational life, making proactive planning for decommissioning essential. In 2024 alone, Europe retired 1.3 gigawatts of wind capacity, and an estimated 22 gigawatts are expected to be decommissioned by 2030. These numbers underscore a growing need to manage the end of life phase responsibly and strategically.
The State of Play: Recycling, Reuse, & Recovery
As turbines age, developers must make informed decisions about whether to extend operational life, refurbish & repower, or fully dismantle assets. A sustainable industry requires more than adding new megawatts; it demands closing the loop on materials, components, and infrastructure. This includes supporting second hand markets for turbine parts, expanding opportunities to repurpose decommissioned materials, and investing in circular value chains built around advanced recycling technologies.
The good news is that most of a wind turbine’s mass is already recyclable. According to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), roughly 90% of the materials in a typical turbine, including steel towers, copper cables, and ferrous metals in foundations can be recovered using established processes. The challenge lies in the remaining 10%: composite blades and certain bonded components that resist standard recycling.
Why Are Blades Difficult to Recycle?
Recycling wind turbine blades remains one of the most challenging aspects of end-of-life management. They are constructed from strong, lightweight composite materials made of fiberglass or carbon fiber embedded in thermoset resins, which undergo a permanent chemical change during curing. Because these polymers cannot be melted and reshaped like traditional plastics, separating the fibers from the hardened resin becomes a complex, energy-intensive process. Their internal structure is intricate, with materials mixed in ways that are difficult to mechanically or chemically break apart.
Blades also pose significant logistical hurdles due to their massive size, often exceeding 250 feet in length, which makes cutting, handling, and transportation costly and technically demanding. Even when blades are processed, the recovered materials typically have low economic value, creating limited financial incentive for recycling. As a result, the high costs of transport, processing, and specialized equipment often outweigh the value of the reclaimed components, slowing the adoption of large-scale recycling solutions. Despite these technical and logistical difficulties, the industry is actively working towards making blade recycling more feasible.
In Europe, industry players are taking serious steps towards full blade circularity. WindEurope has started a No Blade Left Behind campaign which highlights OEM and developer commitments to eliminate blade landfill by 2030. In June 2021, Ørsted also committed to never send turbine blades to landfill, opting to reuse, recycle or otherwise recover all blades from newly decommissioned onshore and offshore wind farms. Vattenfall recently launched their “Rewind” program which seeks to find a use for the complex components and composites used in turbines that don’t fit traditional recycling streams. The Rewind program will make reusing turbine components more accessible by offering builders and developers a “digital warehouse” where they can pick and choose available components, check specifications and share creative ideas for new applications.
Siemens Gamesa and Vestas are also working on innovation in this area. SG has demonstrated blades that can be separated and recycled using mild acid chemistry at end of life, while Vestas is commercializing a chemical process that can break down epoxy resin in conventional blades, allowing reuse of the recovered glass and carbon fibers. This could help retrofit circularity into existing fleets without changing blade design, an important step for reducing future waste volumes.
Repowering
Replacing older turbines with more powerful units is another route to reduce decommissioning waste. While repowering is more common for onshore wind farms, it is often less practical for offshore projects. Offshore turbine technology has advanced rapidly, with much larger designs now in use, meaning that existing foundations and infrastructure may not be suitable to support the taller, heavier units. However, replacing key components like nacelles, rotors and transformers on old turbines can still result in increased output and extended project life.
Projects such as Bockstigen in Sweden, show how developers can reuse existing sites and infrastructure to extend project life while improving energy yield. The world’s third offshore wind farm (built in 1998) originally featured five 550 kW turbines nearing the end of their lifespan. The owners partnered with Momentum to repower the site using refurbished Vestas V47 nacelles and new transformers, while reusing the existing towers and foundations. Completed in less than a year, the project extended the wind farm’s life by at least 15 years, doubled energy production, and achieved over 99% availability in its first year of renewed operation.
The Typical Decommissioning Process
Decommissioning an offshore wind farm follows a structured, regulated sequence designed to remove infrastructure safely while minimizing environmental disturbance. Although exact requirements vary by jurisdiction, most projects follow a similar process from planning through site clearance.
1. Pre-decommissioning Surveys: Developers begin with geophysical and environmental surveys to map seabed conditions, cable burial depths, scour protection layers, and the condition of foundations and turbines. These surveys support detailed engineering plans and hazard assessments. Operators also consult regulators, fisheries groups, and maritime authorities to confirm requirements for removals, exclusions, and temporary safety zones.
2. Offshore Logistics Planning: Developers then prepare port facilities, choose vessels, and sequence removal operations. This includes heavy-lift vessels for top-side structures, jack-ups or floating units for turbine dismantling, and specialized barges for transporting foundations, cables, and seabed materials to shore. Contractors mobilize tooling such as cutting systems, dredging equipment, and cable retrieval gear.
3. Turbine Shutdown & Component Removal: Before physical removal, turbines are permanently powered down and isolated from the grid. Blades are typically removed first, followed by the nacelle and tower sections. Components are lifted onto barges or transport vessels. Where possible, operators separate parts offshore to support recycling, although some projects transport whole assemblies to shore for dismantling.
4. Removal of OSS & Transmission Assets: The offshore substation topside is lifted and transported to shore, followed by removal of the jacket or monopile foundation. Export and array cables are either fully removed or partially retrieved depending on regulatory requirements and the condition of burial. Decommissioning plans generally involve disconnecting the cable at the turbine and offshore substation, then retrieving it using drum winding or cutting into short sections for onshore disposal. Increasingly, regulators are expecting full removal unless leaving cables in place is shown to result in lower environmental impact. Technical reviews such as the DIVA Portal study show that, while full retrieval reduces long-term seabed impacts, it can be cost-prohibitive in deep or heavily buried segments.
5. Foundation Removal & Seabed Restoration: Monopiles, jackets, suction buckets, and gravity bases are removed using cutting tools, hydraulic extraction, or other reverse installation methods. Scour protection rocks, concrete mattresses, and other armoring materials are either removed or redistributed to restore natural seabed conditions. Site surveys confirm that no debris remains and that the area is safe for fishing, navigation, and ecological recovery.
6. Onshore Disposal, Recycling, & Material Processing: Once landed at port, components are dismantled for resale, recycling, or disposal. Metals such as steel and copper are highly recyclable. Cables are processed to recover metals and polymers. Turbine blades are directed to recycling facilities, co-processing plants, or composite repurposing programs. Foundations and substations are typically scrapped or partially reused depending on condition and economic viability.
7. Post-decommissioning Monitoring: Regulators often require ongoing environmental and seabed monitoring to ensure habitat recovery, sediment stabilization, and absence of residual debris. A final verification survey is submitted before regulators issue completion certification and formally release the developer from decommissioning obligations.
Technical, Economic, & Regulatory Challenges
Even with progress in circular design, offshore wind decommissioning remains complex, expensive, and logistically demanding. Costs are dominated by vessel time, offshore weather windows, and transport to onshore recycling or disposal facilities. Blades are particularly expensive to handle: they are bulky, difficult to cut, and expensive to ship to the limited number of processing sites. The American Clean Power (ACP) white paper on blade recycling notes that logistics and labor, not chemistry, are the main cost drivers today.
Standardization is another hurdle. Each OEM has its own blade materials, bonding methods, and component geometries, which limits economies of scale in recycling. Designing turbines with modular connections, reversible bonding, and fewer composite interfaces could dramatically reduce end-of-life cost. Several research consortia in Europe are exploring these “design for disassembly” concepts as part of new circular-economy programs.
In practice, decommissioning decisions are project-specific and site-dependent. Some regulators allow partial removal of buried cables or foundations if environmental disturbance would outweigh the benefit of full retrieval. Others mandate complete removal. Harmonizing these approaches internationally will be critical as floating wind adds new technical complexity. Moorings, anchors, and dynamic cables each introduce new material and regulatory questions around decommissioning.
Component Reuse
When turbines are retired, many components like blades still have value. In fact, many are getting a second life in creative and practical ways. In the Netherlands, for example, Blade-Made transforms decommissioned blades into benches, shelters, playground equipment, and noise-barriers. The Re-Wind Network also built a pedestrian and cyclist bridge from two decommissioned turbine blades in Donegal County, Ireland. The project called BladeBridge showcases how blades can serve as structural elements in civil infrastructure. Vattenfall even turned an old turbine nacelle into a fully outfitted microhome. Research has shown that crushed fibers from old blades can be used as reinforcement in low-carbon concrete too. Wind Europe has highlighted designers using blade material for sneakers, surfboards, skis, and benches proving that these composite structures can be valuable well beyond their service on the turbine.
Blade Recycling
Iberdrola recently announced plans for Europe’s first large-scale blade recycling plant, capable of processing several thousand tons of material every year. This facility aims to demonstrate that industrial-scale blade recycling can be both technically viable and commercially competitive. It also signals that circularity is moving from research to reality. Located on the Iberian Peninsula in Navarra, Northern Spain and backed by an investment of approximately €10 million, the facility addresses one of the wind industry’s most pressing challenges. They are recovering and reusing blade components across sectors such as energy, aerospace, automotive, textiles, chemical and construction. With an estimated 5,700 wind turbines per year expected to be dismantled in Europe by 2030 due to end of life cycles, EnergyLOOP plays a critical role in advancing a circular economy model while fostering an innovative value chain for comprehensive blade recycling solutions.
Vestas has developed a breakthrough chemical process that could render its epoxy-resin turbine blades fully circular, including blades already in operation, without altering their design or material composition. Through its CETEC collaboration with Aarhus University, the Danish Technological Institute, and partners Olin and Stena Recycling, Vestas can chemically break down epoxy materials that were previously difficult to recycle into virgin-grade raw materials. These recovered materials can then be reintegrated into new blades or repurposed for other industrial applications. By scaling this solution through a newly established value chain, Vestas is working to eliminate landfill disposal of legacy blades and move the industry toward a truly circular model for epoxy-based turbine components.
Ørsted has partnered with Northern Irish firm Plaswire to pilot a fully scalable recycling solution for wind turbine blades. In the trial, three blades from a decommissioned turbine were shredded, granulated, and turned into a smart polymer used in construction. This method allowed Ørsted to recycle 100 percent of the blade materials in its pilot, avoiding landfill and transforming difficult-to-handle composites into useful resources. Ørsted has committed to applying this solution more broadly as its wind farms reach the end of their lives, helping to close the loop on blade decommissioning.
Siemens Gamesa’s Recyclable Blade, first installed at the Kaskasi II wind farm in Germany, has proven the feasibility of a chemically separable resin system that allows full recovery of fiberglass after turbine decommissioning. RWE just recently installed 150 of these blades at its Sofia Offshore Wind Farm, marking the UK’s first large-scale deployment of this innovative technology. Located 195 km off the UK’s East coast, Sofia now has half (50) of its 14 MW turbines equipped with recyclable blades. Once complete, the 1.4 GW wind farm will generate enough renewable electricity to power around 1 million UK homes.
Conclusion
Offshore wind has always been a story of scale: larger turbines, deeper waters, longer cables. The next challenge is ensuring that this scale does not translate into waste. With clear regulation, circular design, and industrial-scale recycling, the sector can show that wind power is sustainable not just in operation, but from cradle to grave. As the first generation of offshore wind farms approach retirement, the industry has an opportunity to redefine what “end-of-life” really means. Rather than a liability, decommissioning can become the next phase of innovation by closing material loops, recovering value, and proving that wind turbines can be fully circular in design.
Key References
- WindEurope — No Blade Left Behind
- Siemens Gamesa — Recyclable Blade Pilot Overview
- Vestas — Circularity Solution for Epoxy Blades
- U.S. DOE — Recycling 90% of Wind Turbine Mass
- OEUK — Decommissioning Guidelines for Wind
- RenewableUK — End-of-Life Policy Framework
- ACP — Blade Recycling White Paper
- DIVA Portal — Environmental and Economic Consequences of Cable Decommissioning
- Bockstigen Gotland — Repowering Case Study
- Iberdrola — Blade Recycling Plant
- European Commission – Critical considerations in partial decommissioning
- U.S. DOE Wind Exchange: Wind Energy End-of-Service