Decommissioning wind turbines

When a wind turbine reaches the end of its life cycle, it is dismantled, and the parts are recycled. If the municipality and the owner of the turbines wish, new wind turbines can be built on the site of dismantled wind turbines. The place is valuable because roads and an electricity grid have already been built there. The area’s advantage is also, above all, the accurate data available on the area’s windiness over a long period of time. As a so-called repowering project, new wind turbines built on the site of dismantled turbines are always fully permitted from the beginning. The old electrical network can be utilized, but the foundations always must be completely renewed.

The owner of the wind turbines is always responsible for the dismantling of the wind turbines. Also, a fund can be established, or a guarantee can be set up to cover the demolition costs if the owner goes bankrupt or something else unexpected happens. In practice, the demolition bond is often set in the form of a bank guarantee or other collateral that the property owner accepts.