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Renewable energy generation and increased electrification are pivotal to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and mitigating climate change. Consequently, global deployment of wind turbines has soared, and the trend is expected to continue. Installed turbines have only recently started reaching the end of their design lives, and waste volumes are projected to escalate rapidly. Approximately 94% of a wind turbine (by mass) is recyclable, but the waste polymer composite blades are most commonly landfilled. This mini-review aims to review current end-of-life (EoL) management practices in the large-scale wind industry for countries with established EoL standards as well as those with less mature regulations. Data on current EoL management practices, initiatives and regulations in industry was sourced primarily from literature reviews and publicly available internet information. Additional insights and perspectives were gained from WindEurope's EoL Issues and Strategies 2020 seminar and through communication with select individuals from various sectors such as wind energy development and operations, government, industry associations, academia and research organizations. The results show that the decision on EoL options is dictated by the remaining useful life (RUL) of the wind turbines, prevailing policies and electricity prices. The contribution of this article is, firstly, identifying a number of key technical, economic and regulatory questions that must be asked before deciding on the most appropriate EoL option. Secondly, the article identifies factors that impede current EoL management efforts to close the circular economy gap and those that can support sustainable technology deployment. Finally, the article considers the way that countries with a young fleet of wind farms may learn from more experienced nations. There are few proven business cases, and barriers to the profitability and effectiveness of EoL strategies include uncertainty about the assets' RUL, collection logistics, the size of wind farm operation margins, low waste feedstock and limited markets for recycled products. Designing for circularity, stakeholder collaboration, circular business models and technology-specific regulations can improve EoL sustainability. The research found that wind turbine EoL management is dynamic and complex and needs to consider multiple, often conflicting factors. However, it is necessary and has immense environmental, technical and economic potential as the industry matures and business cases are proven.

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RESUMEN

Repowering systems is a long-lasting managerial endeavor where decision-makers face maintenance and optimization problems. The decision time to repower an energy system is one of the most important matters in this field. Also, in the real-world, each component of the system has different versions available in the market, so choosing the best version of components can be one of the valuable and practical issues in repowering a system. Therefore, decision-makers need optimal repowering policies in order to generate the optimal combination of system's components as well as the optimal time to repower this system with respect to important concerns such as cost, availability and safety issues. This paper provides a first-step decision-making model based on four independent repowering strategies for energy systems. A case study from offshore wind turbine system is presented afterwards to demonstrate the effectiveness of the presented policies. This decision support tool deals with the optimal repowering time and the best combination of components based on cost, availability, and safety constraints.

RESUMEN

The growing concern about future challenges of energy security and climate change has led to the expansion of renewable energy production, with a special emphasis on wind power. Despite the environmental advantages of wind power, it's important to assess the impacts caused by the presence of wind farms on wildlife, particularly on species also affected by habitat loss and degradation. In Mediterranean Europe, the skylark (Alauda arvensis) is a declining passerine that breeds in mountain habitats vulnerable to the abandonment of traditional management practices and climate change. We have created a spatially explicit agent-based model (ABM) in order to replicate the selection of territories, evaluating the effect of wind farms on the mortality rate of breeding males. We were especially interested in assessing the mortality rates related with the interplay between habitat loss due to socio-ecological change and increasing wind power using alternative strategies: adding wind turbines or substituting existing wind turbines by more powerful ones, i.e. repowering. Several known aspects related with the risk of collision of A. arvensis with wind turbines were considered, particularly regarding the male habitat selection and behaviour displayed throughout the breeding season. By simulating a sequential contraction of suitable habitat for the species, we found a substantial increase in the breeding territories superimposed to the wind farm influence zone. In these conditions males' relative mortality was predicted to suffer significant increases. For equivalent wind power, adding wind turbines produced significant increases in the males' relative mortality, whereas repowering didn't. Based on our findings we propose repowering as a defensible strategy to increase wind energy production without increasing A. arvensis collision risk. We highlight that this strategy might also benefit other vulnerable bird and bat species associated with declining habitats of mountain ridges in the Mediterranean region.

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