LafargeHolcim strengthens the cycle in the wind industry
LafargeHolcim is working with GE Renewable Energy to recycle materials from dismantled wind turbines, including rotor blades. Both companies will explore new ways of recovering and recycling them.
The Zug-based building materials group LafargeHolcim and the Paris-based General Electric subsidiary GE Renewable Energy are teaming up. According to a press release, together they want to find new ways of recycling materials from dismantled wind turbines. The rotor blades are also to become part of a circular economy, among other things as material for the construction of new wind farms.
Both want to develop closed loop solutions especially for the European market. The background to this is that wind turbines that are aging there by 2025 with a cumulative output of almost 10 gigawatts will be repowered, i.e. replaced with more powerful ones of the latest generation or shut down.
"With sustainability at the heart of our strategy, the acceleration of renewable energies and the circular economy are top priorities for our company," said Edelio Bermejo, head of the Global Innovation Center at LafargeHolcim. “I am very happy about this collaboration with GE Renewable Energy because it fulfills both goals.” According to the CEO of his partner, Jérôme Pécresse, this collaboration “will make a significant contribution to increasing the sustainability of wind energy today and in the future ".
Both companies have been working together since 2020. Together with the Danish company Cobod , they are developing record-high towers for wind turbines using concrete 3D printing. These towers are "more robust, more efficient and will be manufactured ten times faster than before," says the press release. According to its own information, LafargeHolcim recycled 46 million tons of material last year. By 2030 it should be 100 million tons.