Life Cycle Assessment of the Emissions Reduction Potential of Recycled-Carbon-Fibre for Western-Australian Offshore Wind Turbine Blades

Abstract

The objective of this study is to conduct a review of recycled-carbon-fibre (rCF) wind turbine blades’ feasibility, through a comparison of global and Australian wind sector waste, and a comparison of virgin-carbon-fibre (vCF) with rCF wind turbine blades’ greenhouse-gas GHG-emissions, and, recommend an approach for carbon-fibre CF-use in the fledgling Australian offshore wind industry, based on global-warning-potential GWP. This study assesses the life-cycle GHG-emissions of virgin-carbon-fibre wind turbine blades versus recycled-carbon-fibre wind turbine blades, in both non-structural and structural configurations. All production, use and recycling is assessed in terms of a West Australian context, in which the functional unit is three turbine blades used on an onshore wind farm, towards potential applicability for (as yet, non-existent) offshore WA fields. An approach incorporating a GaBi/Sphera database-study provides a timely screening/preliminary study, in which it was found that non-structural recycled carbon fibre wind turbine blades had very similar GHG emission levels compared to standard virgin carbon fibre blades, with sensitivity analysis revealing that in worst-case scenarios, non-structural carbon fibre has higher GHG emissions. Structurally recycled carbon fibre blades performed significantly better than standard virgin carbon fibre wind turbine blades with a 56% reduction in GHG emissions; savings were not affected significantly by parameter changes during sensitivity analysis. It is evident that recycled-carbon-fibre can significantly reduce wind turbine blades’ GWP and contribute to the circular economy in the fledgling West Australian offshore-wind-turbine sector.

Keywords

Offshore-wind-turbine / Blades / Carbon-fibre / Emissions/GHGs

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, A.W., L.H.; Methodology, L.H., A.W.; Software, L.H.; Validation, L.H.; Formal Analysis, L.H.; Investigation, L.H.; Resources, L.H. & A.W.; Data Curation L.H.; Writing, original draft preparation, L.H.; Writing, review & editing, A.W., L.H.; Visualization A.W. & L.H.; Supervision, A.W.; Project Administration, A.W.; Funding n/a.

Ethics Statement

The study was conducted according to the guidelines approved by the ethics committee of Curtin University Perth Australia, project HRE2024-0372, 13 March 2025.

Informed Consent Statement

Not applicable.

Data Availability Statement

For this original article, accessibility of research data linked to the paper is retained and available in the usual way.

Funding

The authors declare that they received no external funding other than in-kind, institutional facilities’ support.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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