Wind power is free but did you know that capturing the power of the wind would be impossible without plastics? Special plastics are used in the wind turbine covers and huge blades to tap into this environmentally friendly energy source! The development of renewable energy resources is booming. Solar and wind power, geothermal heat and biomass are inexhaustible. Already, entire regions in Europe are using renewable energy to meet their heating, hot water and electricity requirements with innovative solutions made from state of the art plastics!

Wind Power – the year round

Wind power is only one of many possibilities of using renewable energy. In order to tap this energy on a commercial scale, windmills must be equipped with very long rotor blades. These blades are almost entirely made from fibre-reinforced plastics, as only this material is able to withstand the permanent mechanical stress on a rotor of this size. At present, offshore windmills are built with a rotor diameter of 125 m and a rated output of five megawatts of electricity.

Renewable energy

With major prospects for the future, Europe will take a leading part in the development of new sources for renewable energy. At a meeting in Brussels held in March 2007, the EU‘s 27 heads of state and government agreed to boost the share of renewable energies in the European energy balance from currently 6.4% to 20% by 2020. Intelligent plastics solutions will make a substantial contribution to the improvement of the European energy balance sheet.