On Dec. 12, the same day that Forbes Magazine slapped Maine with its third consecutive “ worst state for business” tag, the U.S. Department of Energy deemed Maine a good place to invest in offshore wind energy development. That recognition fuels hope that better economic fortunes can be found on the prevailing winds in the Gulf of Maine.
In a competition that began with more than 70 applicants, projects based in Maine won two of the seven U.S. Department of Energy grants awarded to advance offshore wind energy development. Maine is the only state with two grant recipients.
The Advanced Structures and Composites Center at the University of Maine and Statoil North America will each receive as much as $4 million to move ahead with pilot projects designed to test floating turbine wind energy generation technology in the Gulf of Maine. Both will compete for one of three awards that could boost Department of Energy funding for the projects by $47 million over four years.
“Maine has competed at the highest level of competition and won these grants,” said Habib Dagher, director of the Advanced Structures and Composites Center and the leader of Maine’s effort to become a global hub for floating turbine research and development. “Maine is now at the forefront of this national effort. It’s very significant that the eyes of the world are on Maine.”
In addition to demonstrating their technical merit, the Maine projects survived rigorous review to determine their economic viability. Given the Forbes rating and long-term lethargy of the state’s economy, the business potential of offshore wind energy development in Maine warrants full exploration. Research and development feed economic revitalization, and the Department of Energy grants provide the latest evidence that Dagher and his associates have made savvy decisions that position Maine to benefit from the global market’s increased focus on floating turbines.
“The offshore wind industry is starting to realize that floating foundations are becoming an increasingly attractive alternative to fixed foundation structures,” international renewable energy consultant GL Garrad Hassan wrote in describing one of its programs at September’s global conference on wind power in Hamburg, Germany. “These developments are rapidly decreasing the cost of floating wind energy.”
Maine has a realistic opportunity to become an incubator for floating turbine technology development. China, with its voracious appetite for energy, and Japan, in the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear plant catastrophe, join Europe as potential markets for the knowledge about floating turbine technology being refined in Maine.
There are no floating turbine test sites in U.S. waters, and only two in the world — off the coasts of Norway and Portugal. The pilot projects proposed for Maine would test two different types of floating turbine technology.
The University of Maine-led Aqua Ventus I project, which aims to place two 6-megawatt turbines off Monhegan Island by 2017, is backed by more than 30 private investors. Their investments range from “tens of thousands of dollars to tens of millions of dollars,” according to Dagher. If the pilot project succeeds, developers would place a commercial wind farm with 80 turbines in a 4-by-8 mile area 20 miles offshore.
For the separate Hywind Maine pilot project that hinges on a four-turbine test of “spar-buoy” technology in federal waters off Boothbay Harbor, Statoil offers 40 years of profitable international energy development experience. If its pilot proves viable, Statoil would move forward with plans for a commercial wind farm. However, the firm’s representatives continue to seek common ground with the Maine Public Utilities Commission on ways to shield Maine utility ratepayers from cost increases associated with experimental technology.
Cost-containment is important, but the increased price for energy generated by the pilot projects also must be viewed as an investment in innovation designed to make wind power competitive with other energy sources. Asking firms likely to benefit from the pilot projects to buy some of the power generated at higher rates, as suggested by Ken Fletcher, director of the Maine Energy Office, would be one way to balance protection for ratepayers with a message that Maine isn’t afraid to be the U.S. birthplace for floating turbine technology.
The Department of Energy grants and Statoil’s ongoing interest in Maine add credibility to the state’s status as a potential hub for offshore wind energy development. Such positive attention from the global marketplace is rare and something that Maine should cultivate.
We have the keys to Maine’s economic success in the future sitting right over in Eastport. We should be putting all our efforts into developing that port and access to it. Make Route 1 a four lane highway to Ellsworth and then 1A into Brewer. Double barrel rails lines from Eastport to at least Portland. In an economy where everything is now moving by ship, we need to get set up to service ships. It would not be nearly as complicated as the East/West highway and it would connect us with American traffic lanes, not Canadian ones.
We can’t do that because it would have to use tax dollars. If no private company wants to do it then obviously its should not be done.
Was the national highway system built by private companies? If I remember correctly it was funded by the federal government.
You remember correctly! I should have made it clear that I was being sarcastic. I apologize!
Sorry should have got it.
no, no, no, can’t hear tone of voice while reading.
It was vital to national defense. Off shore wind would be vulnerable to attack by fishing boats. Dumb idea, you pay for it.
Offshore wind will make more and more sense as we run out of oil. “Gassers” claim we have enough to last for centuries. People who work within the industry know better. “Gassers” think the only solutions came come from the ground and everything else is a dumb idea. A mentality hopelessly tethered to the last century and the greed of big oil.
Oil is irrelevant. This is about electricity.
So it’s OK for government to subsidize this huge road upgrade that benefits private industry, and OK to subsidize the incredibly profitable oil industry, but not OK to subsidize the wind industry. Got it.
The national highway system was both useful and necessary, thus worthy of public investment. This offshore wind thing is neither useful nor necessary.
I remember riding the rails between Bangor and Calais. I rode the rails to Eastport back in the day (70’s). Absolutely hated to see train traffic go away on those two branches. There just wasn’t any left other than the paper mill in Woodland and I think that is gone now to?
This actually makes a lot of sense.
First you would have to run that past Robert Godfrey to see if he would allow anything to disturb his own personal utopia.
Sad, but true. It is hard to imagine one person’s ego determining the fate of an entire state, but it happens.
You try jamming a four lane highway through here, you better wait till Obama and company collect all the guns, knives, and baseball bats.
PLUS the fact trade to Eastport by ship must cross Canadian waters. They have already said NO to LNG, so what else will they ban?
This is a research and development project. It’s implementation into the real world will be determined by the outcome of this research and development project. This technology will need to be better than current electrical generation technology to go beyond the research stage. By better, I mean more reliable at less cost. Good luck to ya, UMO
exactly. continuing research is a good thing, but its at least a generation away from improving the economic situation in the state.
Continuing research is a good thing? Then why do taxpayers have to support it. If it is such a good thing corporate entities ought to be all over it.
Yes, let us just wit for Corporations to get around to it. They only care about if it can make them money. That is not the point of Government, they need to get stuff done for the nation, not just wait around to see if the private sector will get to it.
if there was true competition in the electricity generating market they would then have the incentive. in the current scheme, everyone that generates is making money, unless they need to innovate to keep from falling behind, the incentive isn’t there.
So we should just give it up.
It’s great to involve the young bright minds in these projects, but we need to be focusing on more than industrial wind as a future energy source. In Maine, the inland wind projects have fallen far short of their promised output and our electricity rates are going up to cover the cost of the transmission line upgrades required by these projects. Increasing Maine’s energy costs is not going to do much good for Maine’s business climate. Hydropower would go a lot farther toward lowering our electricity costs.
Go Maine.
Habib, define ‘commercial’ for us and put it in context with other forms of generating and transmitting energy. The last number I saw for buying Cape Cod offshore wind energy was 52 cents/kWh. This didn’t include transmission costs for underwater cables or on shore grid ties or the cost of replacement power or the cost of powering up the wind turbine when the wind goes below threshold.
I don’t mind a private investment; but subsidizing it……we’d be better off building an exploratory mission to Mars out of Composites.
R&D is nice; but lets get practical we have far too many health care, housing and transportation needs to spend money on unnecessary projects that will disrupt the sea bottom, reduce fishing grounds, and further reduce the fishery.
How are wind turbines going to to disrupt the sea bottom? Did you imagine this by yourself or did you have help?
you don’t think they just float around out there do you? they must be anchored to the sea floor.i don’t think it would have any negative effects on the sea floor but there will be that argument made when this project moves forward
There is a legitimate concern that they will interfere with large nets. The turbines and foundations take up only a small area, but their presence limits the ability of ships to drag the large nets efficiently. This is actually a good thing for the fishery as we attempt to allow it to restock to a sustainable base volume, but the industry does not see it that way.
The only thing keeping this lab afloat is the money Susan Collins gets from the federal government. Otherwise, every staff member, research scientist, and lab manager and assistants would be out of a job.
As far as redeeming Maine as the worst state in the country to do business, it is apples to oranges comparison.
Design me a small compact, natural gas driven turbine the size of my existing furnace that can heat my water and charge my NiCad DC batteries – which I then invert to AC – and not be hooked up to the high cost of electrical power; then this lab pays for itself in spades. After all, if we are burning a fossil fuel to heat our houses, why can’t also use it to power them as well.
And how are you going to bring natural gas to every home in Maine? As it stands now the NIMBYs are blocking every attempt to have a terminal in Maine. That means that we have to buy our LNG from Canada. Just like we buy most of our gasoline and heating oils from Canada.
Nope. Once again an opinion without research. The Sable Island natural gas pipeline goes from one end of Maine to the other It already provides natural gas to Old Town, Orono, Jay, and several other communities. There are terminals in St.John, and in Massachusetts. All we need is more pipe.
Saint John is not in Maine. Sable Island is a Canadian project. The pipeline goes through Maine. I was responding to Independent Mainer.
I would love to see LNG comming to my house. It won’t happen in my lifetime but I would love to see it. I highly doubt you will see it in any homes in Washington County.
Au contraire.
Such idiotic projects run by grant seekers to build their careers at your expense will send electricity rates through the roof.
See:
http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/maine-electricity-rates-going-up
GOOD LUCK UMO. We need to be on the cutting edge of this. Like all things, it will take time, but great potential is here. We should be a leader in this and other forms of alternative energy.
Why?
Off shore wind will eventually be seen as too expensive. The Gulf of Maine is not a good place for mechanical devices Ask any fisherman or person who has to do maintenance on shore-front property. Salt corrodes, the freeze warm cycle cracks, and the UV rays form the sun disintegrate..
Maine has potential for tidal power, and river power. We actually don’t need to invent or insert a “new” technology. just use what we have. One Hoover style dam on ANY of our six major rivers would give us cheap energy locally, and even energy to sell.
Get to work!
Wow, you would have thought the scientist would have taken that all into account.
I’m sure there would be no problems at all from the upstream landowners who would be flooded out by such a project, or the roads that would be inundated. Even ignoring the negative environmental impacts, just the economics involved in acquiring the land rights would be prohibitive.
Yep, we should never experiment with anything. Who needs electricity. The earth got along quite well for thousands of years without it. Any experimentation is a bunch of hocum.
Experimentation is good. Research at UMO is good. But research is not the marketplace. If the laboratory can show us some solid promise that this product will be useful, affordable, and generally viable then bring it to market. But if it can’t, then don’t mandate it on us.
There is no need for Maine to triple its electricity generating capacity. Demand is forecasted to increase less than 1% annually for the long term. If we want the coal plant in Connecticut or the oil plant on Cousins Island to close, has Habib even contemplated the fact that wind power cannot replace or even displace either Base load or peak load generators? No. It can’t and won’t happen. If we must get new generation, we should seek generation that is useful, versatile, and affordable. Big clean hydro from the provinces is viable; it can provide base load, peak load, and marginal power. Wind can do none of those. But again…do we need it??? Also…Talk about a bull’s eye for terrorists!