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Toward the Advanced Manufacturing of Land-Based Wind Turbine Blades

Conference ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2023-2092· OSTI ID:2429514
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The National Renewable Energy Laboratory and General Electric (GE) are partners within the Additive and Modular-Enabled Rotor Blades and Integrated Composites Assembly (AMERICA) project. AMERICA aims to develop advanced manufacturing solutions to reduce labor and cycle time while increasing recyclability of wind turbine blades. The project is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Manufacturing Office. This paper describes the techno-economic and life cycle analysis of the novel manufacturing process applied to the 15-meter long tip of the blade of a representative 3.4 MW land-based wind turbine. We establish a comparison to a standard manufacturing process, highlighting challenges and opportunities. Several uncertainties affect the analysis, but we highlight an opportunity space. With the current set of assumptions, the tip adopting advanced manufacturing is predicted to lower labor by 21%, cycle time by 39%, and total blade tip costs by 15% while simultaneously increasing production quality and adopting recyclable thermoplastic resin. A life cycle analysis returns comparable metrics for climate change impact and embodied energy between the two processes.

Research Organization:
National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Energy Efficiency Office. Advanced Manufacturing and Materials Technologies Office (AMMTO)
DOE Contract Number:
AC36-08GO28308
OSTI ID:
2429514
Report Number(s):
NREL/CP-5000-90896; MainId:92674; UUID:bf247187-56e3-42fe-bc46-b2439f7f8f5a; MainAdminId:73370
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Related Subjects

3D printing
MATERIALS SCIENCE
WIND ENERGY
additive manufacturing
advanced manufacturing
automation
blades
composites
recycling
thermoplastics
wind energy