USWTDB Announces New Decommissioned Turbine Dataset – CleanTechnica

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We are pleased to announce that we have just released a new dataset of decommissioned wind turbines that have been confirmed as dismantled. The decommissioned turbine dataset can be downloaded in Excel format from the LBNL webpage here. Variable definitions and related information are available in the USWTDB codebook, available at the same link.

Decommissioned wind turbines are regularly identified, visually verified, and removed from the normal USWTDB (and the accompanying web viewer application and API) through our normal quarterly-updating process. In addition, the legacy 2014 USGS wind turbine dataset (which formed the foundation of the current USWTDB) had identified and flagged 2,775 decommissioned turbines. Although the USWTDB analyst team tracks and stores these decommissioned turbine records, they were never previously made available to the public. Over time, through our quarterly-update and visual verification process, the USWTDB internal dataset of decommissioned turbines has grown to include over 11,600 records. Now, with support from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Wind Energy Technologies Office, we have produced and released a public version of this decommissioned turbine dataset.

As the volume of decommissioned turbines has increased, there is heightened interest around questions of wind turbine material waste, recycling, and circularity that could be informed by more robust and available data on decommissioned turbines. As well, accurate and up-to-date data could inform stakeholders about realistic expectations about project lifetimes, the historical likelihood of in-situ plant repowering, and other important trends. The public value and utility of data on decommissioned wind turbines can be expected to increase as the wind industry matures and more turbines are decommissioned.

Feel free to contact us at uswtdb@lbl.gov with any questions or comments on this new decommissioned dataset (or on the normal USWTDB).

Courtesy of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.