Decommissioning is a brutal piece of terminology as it basically means removing something from service; rendering it permanently unusable; putting it totally out of reach. No matter how.
In the minds of many, it is inextricably linked with armaments and the critical need to destroy them in such a way that they can never be remanufactured to threaten again.
The, by mutual agreement, destruction of nuclear warheads is a classic example; removing knives and guns from city street circulation and processing them as scrap is another; the systematic destruction of fishing vessels in the European fleet to protect seafood stocks is a third.
In the energy industry, it has come to mean a great deal more; it’s no longer simply about crude scrapping but how to maximise recycling, notably the recovery of metals, and facilitating the removal and reconditioning of generating plant and the remanufacturing of recovered smaller kit like switchgear and valves.
The following is an excellent example of how a new future could have been found for an old plant.
On October 14 1993, Construction News reported that a trio of the UK’s big coal-burning power stations were to be painstakingly dismantled, shipped to China and rebuilt.
“Electricity generator PowerGen this week confirmed it was close to signing the novel deal with the Chinese,” said the industry paper.
“It is the first time engineers in this country have attempted to dismantle power stations so they can be rebuilt on the other side of the world.
“The redundant coal power stations earmarked for export are Ferrybridge B in Yorkshire, Drakelow B near Burton on Trent, and Castle Donington near Derby.
“All the main plant, including steam turbines, boilers, coal milling and conveying equipment will be carefully disassembled and shipped.”
PowerGen told Construction News: “Much of the detail still needs to be sorted out, but the Chinese are very interested in taking the stations.”
So did the deal go through?
Well, no; it crashed and burned. The South China Morning Post even headlined the idea as an “environmental disaster”, and that was that.
However, anecdotally, it is said that some generating equipment from redundant UK stations was sold overseas and recommissioned.
Whilst the China deal proved a non-starter, whilst coal-fired power generation has ceased in the UK with most stations crudely demolished; at least a very high percentage of the materials, mostly methodically recovered from redundant North Sea production platforms, will be sold for scrap.
However, the situation with redundant wind turbine kit is very different, with hugely promising remanufacturing and recycling opportunities already presenting, though dealing with turbine blades remains a thorny issue.
Big Wind is on the march worldwide on- and offshore, with Europe and China especially regarded as the star players in the low carbon energy revolution.
Now to set the stage with a few, fresh mega-stats from BloombergNEF:
- More than 40% of the world’s electricity came from zero-carbon sources for the first time in 2023; 14% from wind and solar
- Almost 91% of global net power capacity additions came from solar and wind in 2023 versus 6% from fossil fuels
- Renewable energy attracted $313billion of new investment in the first half of 2024, similar to the same period in the prior year
- Renewable power output rose more than 5% year-on-year, to make up nearly a third of global generation in 2023
And, according to the latest ‘Power Transition Trends’, total global power-generating capacity reached 8.9TW (terawatts) last year.
Wind power alone now accounts for 1TW of installed capacity, a historic milestone.
However, the wind sector’s achievement is eclipsed by surging solar deployment, with a net 428GW (gigawatts) of solar capacity added last year, up 76% year-on-year, to bring the total global installed solar fleet to 1.6TW.
Expressed simply and setting PV aside, the opportunities in wind are simply staggering but manufacturing capacity still falls a long way short of demand and so acts as a drag.
This sets the stage perfectly for the development of a second-hand wind market based on turbines rendered redundant because of age and generating capacity but which have been given a new lease of life following remanufacturing/major overhaul.
This emerging secondary market is so attractive that even original equipment manufacturers like Vestas (of which more below) are gearing up.
According to Dutch co-operative financial institution Rabobank, across European diaspora, many wind turbines will reach notional end of life over the coming decade.
After that the options are to scrap, give them life extension overhauls to enable continued operation in their original location, or sell them on for further service elsewhere.
And if they are to be scrapped, Rabobank warns: “The future of wind energy waste lies in Europe, to secure its critical raw materials and to prevent decommissioned turbine parts from being landfilled or burned in non-European countries”.
Currently, 85% to 90% of decommissioned wind turbine components are recycled. Though processing solutions are now being offered, the bank insists that blade recycling remains challenging and currently (early 2024) most decommissioned blades end up in landfills or are incinerated.
The EU’s revised Renewable Energy Directive (REDIII) which recently came into force, has set the target to increase the share of renewable energy to 45% of the European Union’s gross final consumption of energy by 2030.
In the broader European market, wind energy has grown from 123GW of installed capacity in 2013 to 253GW by the end of 2022. BloombergNEF has estimated that Europe installed almost 18GW of wind energy capacity in 2023 alone; mostly onshore.
Given the typical 20 to 25 year lifetime expectancy of the currently installed wind turbines, a large part of the European turbine fleet will reach the end of its operational life over the next 10 to 15 years.
Rabobank points out that extension of the service life of turbines could result in increased revenues from existing projects. In addition to the financial advantages, lifetime extension could be crucial for some countries to reach their net-zero targets.
The bank says: “It should be noted that lifetime extension follows the ‘reduce’ principle of circular economy, as turbines could be used until their real end of life.
“Therefore, extending the lifetime of turbines could slow the demand for raw materials and key components, so that those resources could be spent more efficiently, resulting in a lower waste stream that could also lighten the recycling load.”
As for repowering a windfarm, there are three options: keep the original towers and foundations and fit new, lower-powered generators; keep tower and foundations but fit a more powerful head; or simply replace everything in one go, space permitting. Each option has ups and downsides.
Despite the challenges, 4.31 GW of wind power capacity (both onshore and offshore) was repowered in Europe between 2013 and 2022.
European countries have decommissioned 4.95GW of wind power capacity over the past decade.
Trade body WindEurope expects more than 13GW of existing wind capacity to be decommissioned between 2023 and 2030, while their expectation for repowered capacity over the same period is limited to 9GW.
Notwithstanding the modest repowering estimate, it is a market that OEMs like Vestas are showing growing interest in, besides overseas markets elsewhere, especially in developing countries.
Indeed, according to Vestas, while modern wind turbines are increasingly becoming a favourable choice for most customers, there can still be challenges involved in their establishment for certain customers.
These challenges can arise in scenarios such as:
- Asset owners wanting to build smaller-scale wind farms
- Customers located in remote locations outside the electrical grid
- Asset owners of ageing wind assets looking to upgrade their turbines
The scenarios can present various difficulties, including:
- Inadequate transportation and grid infrastructure
- Challenging site access in mountainous, desert, or rural areas
- Limited availability of cranes
- Restrictions on tip or hub height
- Decreased financing options and nonbankable power purchase agreements (PPAs)
Vestas says it has developed a solution that meets these challenges by using turbines that have been refurbished to a technically new condition.
The company claims: “This solution offers highly reliable Vestas turbines at a lower investment than that required by a new turbine.
“Using refurbished turbines results in a significant reduction of the turbine’s carbon footprint.
“By refurbishing it is possible to reuse up to 95% of the material of a component compared to a new item, and on average 75% of all material is reused during the refurbishment process.”
Vestas further claims that a refurbished component saves, on average, 60% of CO2 emissions compared to a new part, when reverse logistics are taken into account; that is the cost of bringing the item from the turbine to the factory for repairs.
“By refurbishing components, we can more than halve CO2 emissions and significantly improve the reuse of materials, thereby contributing substantially to improve a wind project’s sustainability performance.”
Vestas says that it primarily buys up turbines that have been serviced by the company and which have been operating in moderate conditions. Thus a residual lifetime can be assessed to 15+ years.
That’s a huge circularity gain but one that can so very easily be wrecked.
Back to Rabobank: “So far, development of wind energy projects has been driven mainly by the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing energy independence.
“In the slipstream of these ambitions, the increasing number of aging wind turbines in Europe represents a growing environmental challenge that needs to be addressed in a sustainable way to avoid solving one problem by creating another.”
