Acciona has partnered with professional surfer Josh Kerr and his surfboard brand Draft Surf to create the world’s first surfboards made from a retired wind turbine blade.

Crafted from a decommissioned blade from Acciona’s Waubra wind farm in Victoria, an initial range of ten prototype boards have been made as part of Acciona’s Turbine Made initiative, which was launched in February as Australia’s first initiative dedicated to exploring ways to transform decommissioned wind turbine blades into new materials and products. It represents the next step in Acciona’s efforts to advance a circular economy in the renewable energy sector in Australia.

The surfboards, hand crafted on the Gold Coast, feature repurposed turbine blade strips built into the deck for strength and flex control. The fins of the board, made from recycled fibreglass, provide stability, drive and speed and the outer shell is further strengthened by incorporating recycled turbine blade particulate into the fibreglass manufacturing process.

“When Acciona approached us about being part of the solution and working together to create these surfboards, we jumped at the opportunity,” said Kerr. “At its core, our brand is about enabling the best surfing experience with quality products, in a sustainable way - which aligns with Acciona’s vision for Turbine Made.”

“We know that in the next 10 to 15 years countries like Australia will have a large volume of decommissioned wind turbine blades, so we’re acting now to explore new ways to recycle and reuse the material they are built from,” added Acciona Energia’s global sustainability director Mariola Domenech “The creation of a surfboard prototype, developed locally, is an example of how we’re reimagining the materials from decommissioned turbine blades and pushing the envelope of innovation when it comes to the circular economy.”

The Turbine Made initiative builds on Acciona’s previous work which has included a collaboration with European fashion brand El Ganso to create sports shoes featuring recycled blade material in their soles, as well as the integration of recycled blade materials into the torsion beams of solar trackers at a solar plant in Extremadura, Spain.

New recycling plant

Acciona is also advancing its end-of-life turbine recycling through a blade recycling plant in Navarra, Spain, which is set to become operational in 2026, creating 100 jobs and with a processing capacity of 6,000 tons of material per year.

At JEC World 2025 n Paris on March 5^th, Anurag Bansal, Acciona’s head of stratedic innovations, took part in round table discussion entitled From Trash to Treasure: Building a Thriving Recycled Composites Supply Chain.

Bansal explained how the Acciona WALUE material recycling project is based on a low-temperature thermal recycling process after which the recycled fibres are processed into chopped strand mat nonwoven fabrics for applications in construction, automotive and renewable energy.

The company has further developed a heat treatment technology designed to recycle composite materials by applying controlled temperature and atmospheric conditions.

Its approach focuses on preserving the properties of the reinforcement fibres, reusing the organic components and transforming the composite materials into secondary raw materials with added value. These secondary raw materials, with quality comparable to that of virgin raw materials, can then be incorporated into different production processes for new products.

Spanish multinational conglomerate Acciona is dedicated to the development and management of solutions for infrastructure and renewable energy and achieved sales in 2024 of €11.2 billion.

www.acciona.com