China’s First Batch Reuse Project for Retired Wind Turbines Starts in Jiuquan, Gansu

According to China News Service, China’s first batch-scale cascade utilisation project for retired wind turbines has officially been launched in Jiuquan, Gansu Province. A total of 25 wind turbines with more than 15 years of service life are undergoing remanufacturing, filling the domestic gap in high-value recycling of retired wind power equipment in bulk.

The first consignment of second-hand turbines has been delivered for transformation by a subsidiary under China Resources Recycling Group. These ageing units suffer from declining power output and rising maintenance costs, and have reached official retirement thresholds. T

echnical teams carry out separate inspection, flaw detection and performance evaluation on generators, gearboxes, blades and tower barrels before rolling out tailored reuse plans. 

Proprietary processes including damage repair, performance reinforcement and precision restoration of transmission assemblies have been applied to complete prototype remanufacturing. 

Independent assessments confirm that upgraded prototypes deliver markedly improved overall performance, with certain core components matching the standard of equivalent new products available on the market. 

The refurbished turbines can serve distributed wind farms, small independent power stations and auxiliary industrial power supply systems.

Fine dismantling and high-value reuse lift the overall utilisation rate of retired wind equipment from 30 per cent to 70 per cent, in contrast with conventional disposal routes such as landfill and incineration. The new approach avoids land occupation and pollution risks linked to waste treatment.

A full-cycle recycling base covering complete machine recovery, whole-process disposal and value extraction is under joint development in Jiuquan. The operator plans to build a three-tier network consisting of central processing hubs, sorting depots and satellite warehouses. Industrial clusters dedicated to wind and solar equipment recycling will be developed to standardise, scale up and raise the economic value of retired new energy asset disposal across China.