Optimisation of multi-rotor wind turbines combined with advanced design techniques to enable lower environmental impacts and reduced cost of energy.

正如维斯塔斯的V236-15兆瓦涡轮机所展示的那样，风力涡轮机的驱动经济性导致了由热固性玻璃和碳纤维增强聚合物(FRP)等高性能材料制成的巨型叶片。然而，目前还没有可行的方法在不降低材料性能的情况下回收热固性玻璃钢叶片。因此，叶片通常在垃圾填埋场结束其寿命或被焚烧；导致重大环境影响(EIS)和物质资本损失的不良情况[1]。碳纤维的制造是能源密集型的，具有显著的全球变暖潜力，即是玻璃的10倍以上，这一事实进一步加剧了这一问题。这种缺乏可持续性和循环性的问题是一个棘手的问题，风能行业和学术界正试图使用热塑性塑料和更透明的树脂来解决这个问题，从理论上讲，完全可回收的叶片[1]。即使前景看好，这些技术仍在开发中，许多技术和实际问题仍然存在，例如，回收物的质量；如何将复杂的叶片分离成它们的组成部分；以及这些回收过程的环境影响报告书。更重要的是，用一种树脂系统替换另一种树脂系统并不会从根本上改变风力涡轮机的设计及其比例法则，这意味着叶片将继续需要大量的碳纤维和其他原材料。

As illustrated by Vestas' V236 - 15 MW turbine, the driving economics of wind turbines have led to gigantic blades made of high-performance materials such as thermosets glass and carbon fibre reinforced polymers (FRP). However, there currently exists no viable process to recycle thermoset FRP blades without degradation of material properties. Hence, blades often end their life in landfills or are incinerated; undesirable scenarios resulting in significant Environmental Impacts (EIs) and loss of material capital [1]. This issue is further exacerbated by the fact that the manufacture of carbon fibres is energy intensive and has substantial Global Warming Potential (GWP ), i.e. more than 10 times that of glass [2]. This lack of sustainability and circularity is a thorny problem which the wind industry and academia are trying to solve using thermoplastic and vitrimer resins to enable, in theory, fully recyclable blades [1]. Even if promising, these technologies are still in development and many technical and practical questions remain regarding, for instance, the quality of the recyclate; how to separate complex blades into their constituents; and the EIs of these recycling processes. More importantly, replacing one resin system by another doesn't fundamentally alter the wind turbine design and its scaling laws, meaning that blades will continue to require extensive amounts of carbon fibre and other raw materials.