Posters

Abstract

Most of the areas with high efficiency in energy production due to their high wind speeds are typically not located near high-density populations. Therefore, the need to expand and strengthen the current energy transmission grid is very relevant to any energy transmission system. Moreover, decommissioned wind turbine blades are starting to be accumulated in wind farms across the world. Our team’s research aims to fix both the energy grid and the blade waste problem by repurposing wind turbine blades as energy transmission poles. This infrastructure will be referenced in this paper as the BladePole. The BladePole can help reduce the blade decommissioning problem and provide infrastructure for electricity grids. This paper aims at providing the BladePole as a solution by presenting the advantages and challenges of implementing a second life for used material. Our team has worked on assembling a full-scale representation of the BladePole located at the Georgia Institute of Technology. This prototype presents a conventional energy transmission hardware configuration on a section of an actual wind turbine blade. We intend to present the concepts and ideas that framed the realization of the BladePole prototype and provide the lessons learned from this applicable solution.