Eneco plans for sustainable demolition of Herkingen wind farm by reusing materials

Eneco has set out plans to demolish the Herkingen wind farm on the delta island of Goeree-Overflakkee in the Netherlands. In operation since 1991, the wind farm had been expanded with new wind turbines but has now reached its end of life. During the demolition, Eneco will focus heavily on material reuse in order to minimise waste.

While most turbine materials are easy to reuse, the blades still pose a challenge. To solve this issue, Eneco has agreed that the company Blade–Made will process the blades and transform them into street furniture, playground equipment or sound barriers. At the current pace of progress in blade recycling technology, there should be opportunities to reuse the blade materials in these products at the end of their usable life.

The land on which the turbines are located will be sold to a local farmer, and the lowest mast components will be repurposed as three, 15-metre-high tanks. As this has never been done before, this is a pilot project. If all goes according to plan they will, collectively, be able to store up to 900,000 litres of rainwater, so that the farmer can continue spraying crops during dry periods.

The wind farm’s power connection will be handed over to grid operator Stedin and will be used to optimise the electrical grid on Goeree-Overflakkee.

After 33 years of service as a renewable energy generator, Herkingen wind farm was decommissioned at the beginning of this month. The wind farm initially had five turbines, which were replaced by three larger turbines during the repowering in 2004. Demolition starts on 29 April, weather permitting, and is due for completion in May.

Alongside renewable energy generation, Eneco is committed to circularity as part of its One Planet Plan. We want to achieve full circularity by 2050 and are taking steps in that direction now, where possible. For instance, we will be reusing the lower mast components to help the new owner to protect crops from the harmful effects of drought. And although it’s not yet possible to recycle all parts of the blades, we have found other ways to reuse them in order to secure the materials.