A circular economy must be prioritised to grow the UK’s wind industry fast

This post is by Dr Anne Velenturf, associate professor in circular economy at the University of Leeds.

In March I toured the parliaments of the UK to celebrate the conclusion of the RESCUE project’s implementation phase, culminating in the launch of a policy briefing written with Green Alliance. This collaboration was established to investigate current gaps and challenges for end of use management of wind industry infrastructure.

At each event, we called for the government to integrate a circular economy as a key pillar of the clean energy superpower mission, generating more power from less materials.

Our network is a consortium of seven partners led by the ORE Catapult, which has benefited from the involvement of over 270 people in over a hundred organisations. We listened to a diverse range of opinions and, I’m glad to say, found consensus in all layers of government, and up and down the country.

The government has set out ambitious targets to grow the UK’s wind energy capacity. By 2030, onshore installations are set to double and a tripling of offshore wind capacity is targeted. Fast tracking domestic clean generation is important for energy security and to bring down electricity prices, while tackling climate change at speed.

But building wind turbines requires millions of tonnes of resources, such as steel, concrete and critical materials. The demand for wind turbines far outstrips the UK’s manufacturing capacity, both for material processing and certainly for turbine component production. So we rely on imports to build new wind farms. This makes us vulnerable, especially at a time when we are rapidly increasing our wind capacity. If we can’t access all the materials and components needed, we won’t be able to cut bills and increase our energy security at the speed wanted.

That is why we want the government to do more to embed circular economy solutions in the wind industry. This is about making better use of materials and products already in circulation, using less through smarter designs, generating more value from products built to last longer, and recycling materials when products reach the end of their use.

The people we consulted told us that a circular economy for the wind industry must start with a clear vision and political commitment, and we have developed advice on how government can achieve this in its forthcoming Circular Economy Roadmap for Clean Energy Industries.

We say:

1. Build wind farms to last at least 40 years, with turbines made for durability, and to repair and reuse. This will increase resource productivity and dramatically cut costs and, crucially, it will limit the country’s vulnerability to resource security risks to the UK as geopolitical instability grows.

2. Set targets for reused parts and recycled materials as the fastest way to reduce environmental impacts. As our aging wind fleet comes offline, this will create the market needed for innovative businesses in the end of use value chain.

Circular economy solutions open up new business opportunities. Especially if demand for end of use supply chains is strongly growing.

The UK has no shortage of innovative companies that want to scale up their solutions. From more affordable decommissioning to the refurbishment of turbines, and from repurposing components to recycling turbine blades and magnets. A circular economy and end of use chains are another chance to ignite domestic manufacturing for the industry creating thousands of jobs. Remanufacturing alone can create at least 5,000 extra jobs.

Circular economy companies looking to grow face numerous challenges, not least the long lead times to build facilities, which can take years, and a lack of government targets on reuse and recycling to drive the market’s development.

The complexity of the policy landscape is an issue. We found a multitude of policies and regulations that apply throughout the lifecycle of wind farms and a governance landscape that is too difficult to navigate. It’s not about cutting regulations, but creating regulatory guiderails for circular economy solutions. This will support both the dozens of government bodies involved in the industry, and the companies that are making it happen.

As our briefing shows, additional challenges include planning processes that do not allow for circular economy opportunities, the lack of data sharing along wind technology lifecycles which hamper investment in circular supply chains, and implementation choices for environmental regulations that limit reuse, refurbishment and repurposing.

But these issues are not intractable and the solution starts with a clear vision. And a central solution to this tangle of challenges has to be to increase staff capacity within government bodies involved in regulation.

After our parliamentary tour, the RESCUE project will be writing a series of guidelines and specific briefings in response to these challenges. We look forward to continuing our work with diverse stakeholders to finesse  recommendations and bring them into practice, building a circular economy for wind that will benefit us all.