HAMBURG, Germany, Sept. 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- CRRC (SHA: 601766) announced the completion in Sheyang, Jiangsu Province, of its internally developed 110-meter high-performance recyclable wind turbine blade. Designed for efficient material separation and recovery, the blade achieves a recovery rate exceeding 95% for key raw materials. The milestone marks a significant step toward the commercial-scale recycling of ultra-large wind turbine blades and provides a solution for managing blades at the end of their service life.
China's renewable power buildout is driving up demand for decommissioning and disposal. In the years ahead, China's new onshore and offshore wind installations are expected to exceed 470 GW. That rapid expansion brings a growing problem: as increasing numbers of wind turbines reach the end of their service life, managing the resulting waste is becoming a major challenge for the industry's sustainable growth. Industry estimates suggest that by 2030, more than 30,000 wind turbines will have been retired in China, representing 44.73 GW of capacity and generating 947,900 metric tons of wind-related solid waste. Recovering and reusing materials from retired blades has therefore become a critical challenge for the entire industry.
The blade represents a breakthrough in both materials and recycling technology. It uses a recyclable material system centered on a high-efficiency, debondable infusion resin. While fully meeting the demanding performance requirements for high strength, stiffness and fatigue life, the blade uses reversible chemical debonding technology to separate the resin efficiently from the reinforcing fibers. Once recovered, materials including the resin and fibers can be reused in wind equipment, automotive manufacturing, infrastructure construction and other high-value applications. This moves wind turbine blades beyond the traditional "single-use" model, enabling closed-loop recovery and high-value reuse of their constituent materials.
The recyclable blade system can support customers' efforts to meet international sustainability objectives and reporting obligations, including those under the EU's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). It is also well suited to high-capacity offshore wind turbines and combines safety, environmental performance and cost-effectiveness. Together, these advantages strengthen CRRC's position as it brings its offshore wind equipment to international markets and competes in the global renewable energy sector.
CRRC is continuing to invest in circular technologies for the wind power industry. In March 2025, the company developed China's first TMT82 recyclable thermoset-resin blade. Using an innovative resin system based on reversible chemical bonds, the technology enables efficient depolymerization and separation of the resin and fibers while retaining the strong mechanical performance of conventional blades-overcoming a key technical barrier to blade-material recyclability.
In April 2025, CRRC launched China's first mobile, high-efficiency, intelligent processing system for decommissioned blades, creating a flexibly deployable "smart mobile recycling factory." The system introduces a dual-mode processing model combining distributed and centralized operations that overcomes the geographic limitations of traditional fixed facilities, reduces the transportation and disposal challenges associated with retired blades, and enables processing at scale. Its processing capacity exceeds applicable national standards, establishing a new approach to the large-scale recovery and reuse of thermoset wind turbine composites.
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