The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the six final winners of the Wind Turbine Materials Recycling Prize. Each team was awarded $500,000 in cash prizes, as well as $100,000 in vouchers to work with DOE national laboratories, for creating cost-effective recycling technologies that will increase the sustainability of U.S. wind energy systems.
This combined $3.6 million will expand domestic capabilities for the recycling and recovery of wind materials. This prize, funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and part of DOE's American-Made Challenges program, provides environmental benefits, supports domestic supply chains, and reduces dependence on foreign sources of these materials.
Jeff Marootian, principal deputy assistant secretary for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at DOE, said: Wind energy is expanding rapidly across the United States and now is the time to be planning for the complete life cycle of wind turbine materials. The winners of this prize prove that we can decommission turbines in a manner that is sustainable, economical, and advances our vision for building a comprehensive domestic recycling ecosystem.
A critical component of this work is addressing the 10%-15% of a wind turbine's mass that cannot currently be commercially recycled, such as carbon fiber or fiberglass composites and rare earth elements.
The Accelerate! phase winners are: Cimentaire (Houston, Texas); Critical Materials Recycling (Boone, Iowa); Fletcher Team (Huntington, West Virginia); GreenTex Solutions, LLC (Charleston, South Carolina); United Standard Materials Corporation (Houston, Texas); WIND REWIND (Orono, Maine).
The Wind Turbine Materials Recycling Prize is funded by DOE's Wind Energy Technologies Office, administered by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
Source: www.energy.gov
