Redesigning the Turbine From Blade to Seabed

MADE4WIND is redesigning blades, substructures, and drivetrains for 15 MW floating turbines, with circularity at the core

29 May 2026

Offshore wind has long sold itself on scale. What it has struggled to sell is circularity. Blades from decommissioned turbines pile up in landfill. Drivetrains depend on rare-earth minerals whose supply chains run through geopolitically awkward terrain. Mooring systems and substructures swallow 25 to 30 percent of a floating project's capital costs before a single kilowatt flows ashore.

MADE4WIND, a €6 million initiative coordinated by SINTEF and backed by EU Horizon funding, is attempting to redesign all three components simultaneously for a 15 MW floating turbine. Presented at WindEurope 2026 in Madrid, the project draws on 12 organisations across nine countries. Siemens Gamesa contributes turbine manufacturing expertise, Norsk Hydro leads aluminium materials development, and Acciona supports substructure engineering.

Blade recyclability sits at the centre of the work. New composite chemistry and a preform manufacturing process allow end-of-life materials to re-enter supply chains rather than disposal streams. Aluminium reinforcement bars from Norsk Hydro replace conventional steel inside a tension-leg platform, shrinking the anchor footprint and lightening mooring tendons. A compact generator, meanwhile, reduces rare-earth dependency without sacrificing output.

Designing these parts in isolation has long been one of Europe's floating wind bottlenecks. Past fixed-bottom turbines could not operate beyond roughly 60 metres of water depth, locking off large stretches of Atlantic and Mediterranean resource. Floating designs breach that limit, but only if components become cheaper, lighter, and recoverable enough for deployment at scale to make commercial sense.

Validated results are expected by 2027, just as Europe's floating pipeline approaches financial close on its first commercial projects. Having Siemens Gamesa and Norsk Hydro inside the consortium, rather than watching from the periphery, shortens the distance from research output to industrial supply chain. Most EU programmes never close that gap at all.