Sustainability assessment of new technologies using multi criteria decision making: A framework and application in sectioning end-of-life wind turbine blades

Decommissioned wind turbine blades are becoming a significant problem as they are made from composite material that is difficult to recycle. To solve this problem, sustainable end-of-life value chains are needed. Several significant processes of such value chains consist of the sectioning and pre-processing operations of the blades. Thus, the technologies for these operations must be identified and assessed using sustainable selection criteria. The aim of this study is to investigate how a multi criteria decision making analysis approach can assist and improve the process of assessing technologies through the lens of sustainability. For this purpose, this study proposes a three-step framework for sustainable decision making – 3-SuDeM, which presents a structured approach for how to manage the entire process of applying a multi criteria decision making analysis to an industrial case. The developed framework has been applied and validated in cooperation with a Danish waste management company who have years of experience in handling end-of-life waste. Four different technologies for cutting and sectioning end-of-life wind turbine blades are evaluated using the 3-SuDeM framework applying the method of technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution, and an excavator with a large diamond saw blade is identified as the preferred technology in the given case. The results conclude that the developed framework is both value adding to the practical selection of sectioning technology for blades and also adds to the literature on sustainable value chains, multi criteria decision making methodology and end-of-life wind turbine blades.