Scottish Renewables joins SusWIND Steering Board
Published: 21 August, 2024
The National Composites Centre (NCC) has announced that Scottish Renewables will be joining the SusWIND Steering Board.
SusWIND is a collaborative innovation programme focused on creating a viable circular economy for wind turbine blades. Launched in 2021 by the NCC, in partnership with the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult, the programme focuses on working to accelerate the development of technology, processes and materials that address the recyclability and future development of composite wind turbine blades.
As Scotland’s renewable energy trade body, Scottish Renewables represents organisations working on a wide range of renewable energy technologies including onshore and offshore wind, hydropower, hydrogen, low-carbon heat, solar, tidal and wave energy.
Morag Watson, Director of Onshore for Scottish Renewables said: “As an established, proven and critical part of the UK energy mix, sustainable wind offers a huge opportunity to increase UK energy security. Given Scottish Renewables’ leading role in the energy sector, collaborating with SusWIND for early supply chain intervention will accelerate the circularity of our renewable energy project pipeline. This will directly support the UK to meet net zero targets while helping us seize growth opportunities across the globe.”
As a SusWIND steering board member, Scottish Renewables joins industry advisors including The Crown Estate, Crown Estate Scotland, BVG Associates, RenewableUK, ZeroWaste Scotland, Net Zero Technology Centre and Vestas. Collectively, they provide strategic guidance to a growing community of stakeholders in the composite industry and energy sector that work towards creating end-of-life value from past and current generations of turbine blades and embedding circularity principles at the heart of future generations of turbines.
Phil Slack, Head of Energy at the National Composites Centre said, “The UK is ramping up energy investments to accelerate and de-risk the delivery of renewable wind, with new onshore and offshore developments on the horizon. The industry must act now to ensure the growing supply chain is circular and sustainable by default. With steer from energy leaders like Scottish Renewables, SusWIND continues to facilitate transparency between partner OEMs and owner operators through solution agnostic, impartial and evidence-based recommendations to support educated procurement decisions that will reduce wind energy’s through-life environmental impact.”
Composite materials are a key enabler for the success of wind energy and the role it will play in delivering a low carbon global economy. SusWIND brings together stakeholders from across the composites industry and wind energy sector to look at every aspect of the turbine product lifecycle to achieve a sustainable future. Members drive and define the scope of work for wind turbine blade end-of-life to reduce impact and increase circularity, which in turn, feeds powerfully into other sectors dependant on large structures, be it aerospace, defence or space.
For more information on how to get involved in the SusWIND programme, contact suswind@nccuk.com.
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