REFRESH project EU

The REFRESH project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 101096858. REFRESH aims to develop and demonstrate a novel circular, smart system enabling improved recycling of glass fibre reinforced composites derived from wind turbine dismantling or reblading. The project team consists of 11 European organisations: ACCIONA Construccion (Spain), CETMA (Italy), CIRCE (Spain), EuCIA (Belgium), Enecolab (Italy), GEES Recycling (Italy), Gjenkraft (Norway), MTB Manufacturing (France), RINA Consulting (Italy), STD France, TECNALIA (Spain). The REFRESH concept for building a circular, self-sustainable value chain foresees three steps. When a wind blade is decommissioned, the optimal recycling process will be selected according to the technical condition of that blade and current market demand. This will be achieved by using a dedicated tracing tool for collecting, protecting and sharing information and an embedded decision-making software for selecting the most sustainable approach to recycling at that time. The project will focus on the mechanical and thermo-chemical treatment of waste but will also explore further processing and re-use options. A range of new products resulting from the outputs of the different processes will be designed. The approach developed will be validated by means of LCA and LCC analyses. New developments elaborated during the project will push technologies to maximise the volume (>90%) and quality (>95% purity) of the materials recovered. REFRESH will seek to reintroduce secondary raw materials into the value chains of the energy sector as well as other markets. This will allow potential savings of 52,000,000 tons of virgin raw materials 8 years after project completion. *Views and opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. The European Union cannot be held responsible for them.*