Eco-design in renewable energy: how to design devices that can be repaired and recycled

Eco-design is becoming one of the key tools of the energy transition, because the environmental footprint of renewable technologies is shaped not only during operation, but also during repair, disassembly, and material recovery at end of life. In practice, this means designing turbines, solar panels, and batteries so they can be disassembled, repaired at the module level, and recovered as high-quality secondary raw materials. This approach is also supported by the EU’s new Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, which covers durability, reparability, reuse, recycled content, and the digital product passport.

Why renewable energy needs eco-design

Renewable energy is cleaner in use, but the hardware still requires raw materials, energy, and chemicals to manufacture, and eventually becomes a waste stream that must be processed. If a device was not designed for disassembly, recycling becomes expensive, energy-intensive, and often results in low-value material recovery. Eco-design therefore shifts key decisions to the beginning of the product life cycle: material selection, joining methods, and the overall architecture of the device. In the renewable energy sector, three principles are especially important: modularity, easy disassembly, and material choices that allow recovery without major loss of quality.

Wind turbines: from bonded composites to recyclable blades

The most difficult component in wind turbines is the blade, because it is typically made from composite materials bonded with resins that make separation difficult. In response, manufacturers and research partners are developing blades made with thermoplastic resins and designs that can be separated or reprocessed at the end of life. One example is the ZEBRA project, in which LM Wind Power, Arkema, Owens Corning, and partners built the first fully recyclable blade prototype based on the thermoplastic Elium resin, with the goal of recovering both fibers and resin after use. Siemens Gamesa and RWE also tested recyclable blades at the Kaskasi offshore wind farm, using a resin system designed to make separation and material recovery easier.

A related direction is modular turbine design, so that entire subassemblies can be replaced instead of scrapping large structural sections. TNO notes that future solutions will combine new materials with production processes that enable more complete recycling, and that a first demonstration recycling facility for blades was planned for 2025. The REFRESH project also showed that recycled glass fibers from decommissioned blades can be used to make new blade components, helping to close the material loop within the wind sector itself. In practical terms, this means moving from the question “how do we dispose of a blade?” to “how do we design it so it remains a source of valuable materials after disassembly?”.

Solar panels: controlled disassembly instead of shredding

In photovoltaics, the main challenge is the layered structure of the module, where glass, polymers, metals, and silicon are permanently joined. Traditional shredding produces a mixed material stream with lower value, which is why controlled disassembly and delamination are becoming more important. The PHOTORAMA project developed mechanical panel dismantling, intelligent material separation, and recovery of glass, aluminum, copper, silver, indium, and silicon, with pilot-scale validation units installed at partner sites. The project shows that eco-design for solar panels should also consider whether a module can be dismantled in a way that preserves material purity and value.

An earlier project, ELSi, demonstrated that even strongly bonded modules can be processed in ways that dissolve polymer layers and recover aluminum, glass, silver, copper, tin, and silicon in cleaner form. This is an important signal for designers: if a module is built to make layer separation easier, recycling becomes more economical and less energy-intensive. From a product-design perspective, this means reducing unnecessary adhesives, using separable joints where possible, and standardizing elements that simplify dismantling. These decisions, made at the production stage, ultimately determine whether a panel ends up in low-value treatment or in high-quality material recovery after 25–35 years of operation.

Batteries: designing for disassembly and reuse

Batteries are particularly sensitive from the perspective of safety, logistics, and material value, so eco-design must include not only recycling but also safe disassembly at the module and cell level. In the DeMoBat project, Fraunhofer IPA demonstrated industrial, partially automated disassembly of battery modules, cells, and electric drive units, with material recovery for reuse also in scope. In another publication, Fraunhofer emphasizes that effective battery circularity must already be considered in the design phase through disassembly sequence planning, dismantling depth, and end-of-life strategies for components.

A good practical example is the DIJON project led by RISE together with Volvo Cars, Polestar, Stena Recycling, Atlas Copco, and ABB, which develops connections that can be released, reassembled, and automated for battery pack dismantling. This matters because many current designs rely on permanent rather than removable joints, which makes recovery of valuable materials much harder. In practice, battery eco-design means using screws, connectors, and interfaces that support disassembly, limiting adhesives where possible, and anticipating the recovery pathway already at the system-architecture level. Automation is also becoming important for scaling battery recycling as return volumes grow.

What works in practice

The most promising renewable-energy solutions share one common feature: fewer “permanent” joints, more modularity, and greater material transparency. In wind turbines, this means composites and resins designed for recovery; in solar panels, controlled dismantling and layer separation; and in batteries, construction that supports safe unscrewing and automated disassembly. The digital product passport will likely become increasingly important as well, because it can describe material composition, repairability, and recyclability across the value chain. Without data on materials and assembly methods, high-quality recovery remains costly and uncertain.

What this means for manufacturers

For renewable-energy manufacturers, eco-design is no longer an optional extra but a competitiveness factor in the circular economy. The best results come from designing with end-of-life in mind: how to open the product, which parts to replace, which materials to recover, and how to avoid hard-to-separate mixtures. Companies and pilot projects already show that these approaches are technically feasible; the next step is industrial scaling. In practice, eco-design will determine whether the energy transition is merely low-carbon in use, or truly circular across the full life cycle.

Sources:

• Ministry of Economic Development and Technology, “Ecodesign”.

• EUR-Lex, Regulation (EU) 2024/1781 on ecodesign requirements for sustainable products.

• TNO, “Designing wind turbine blades that can be recycled”.

• RWE / Siemens Gamesa, “RWE tests world’s first recyclable wind turbine blade”.

• IOM3 / ZEBRA, “ZEBRA readies first recyclable wind turbine blade prototype”.

• CORDIS, PHOTORAMA project.

• CORDIS, ELSi project.

• Fraunhofer IPA, DeMoBat.

• Fraunhofer, battery disassembly strategy research.

• RISE, DIJON project.

• CORDIS, REFRESH project.