Strong pilot for scalable blade repurposing—circular, modular, and impactful.

Since last week along the A58 at service area Kloosters in Oirschot, the very first sound barrier made of re-purposed wind turbine blades, the Blade Barrier® by Blade–Made, was unveiled at the innovation strip of Rijkswaterstaat. The Dutch world first is a 60-metre-long test rig that will be monitored and tested for performance until the end of 2026.
Business in Wind was able to supply these GE 1.5MW blades from the Perwez Wind Farm in Belgium, which we dismantled for Eneco.

Modular and sustainable
The sound barrier consists of two whole blades and a sawn section. This allows all common joints to be tested for feasibility and noise reduction performance. With this test set-up, the noise performance, feasibility, maintenance and Environmental Cost Indicator (ECI) to – in case of convincing evidence – enable application in other places in the Netherlands and abroad.
The actual horizontal use requires about 45 blades per kilometer. The version where blades are used vertical require about 200 blades per kilometer. In a circular economy, it is preferred that wind turbine blades from decommissioned wind farms are repurposed in the same region.

The Blade Barrier® is the initiative of Blade-Made and was realised in cooperation with Dura Vermeer and Rijkswaterstaat #innova58 and was supported by Province of Noord-Brabant.