A 375-ton concrete base of a floating wind turbine prototype will be towed from Trenton to Searsport in the next few weeks.
By the end of next month, University of Maine officials said they expect construction of the turbine to be complete and it to be moved again to a test site off Castine.
The development project, which has been championed by state officials since the late 2000s, is proceeding despite opposition to wind power development by President Donald Trump, who after taking office in January halted leasing and permitting for wind energy projects.
Just last week, a tech firm involved in negotiations to help develop an offshore wind research array in the Gulf of Maine cited “recent shifts in the energy landscape that have in particular caused uncertainty in the offshore wind industry” in requesting those negotiations be put on hold, the Maine Public Utilities Commission announced.
Lobstermen in Maine also have raised objections to the development of offshore wind turbines in the gulf, saying that it could harm the fishery.
The new quarter-scale prototype launched off Trenton will be moved between April 7 and 25 to Mack Point in Searsport, traveling around the east side of Mount Desert Island and through Eggemoggin Reach to Penobscot Bay.
Once in Searsport, it will be outfitted with a turbine tower and blades by Westbrook-based CCB Construction Services, according to UMaine officials. The university’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center has been leading research into the design of floating offshore wind turbines that may one day be deployed in the Gulf of Maine.
The floating, semi-submersible concrete hull, which is designed to minimize vertical motion caused by ocean swells and wind gusts, was launched early Monday morning at the seaplane ramp at Bar Harbor Airport in Trenton, UMaine officials said. The base — which is 56 feet wide, 56 feet long and 32 feet high — had been under construction in Trenton since last summer.
Exactly when the concrete hull will be towed the approximately 60 miles from Trenton to Mack Point is highly dependent on weather and vessel traffic at Mack Point, state officials said. Fishing gear will not need to be relocated out of the planned transit route, they said.
After the turbine is constructed on the floating base, which is expected to take six weeks, it will be moved across upper Penobscot Bay to a location off Dyce Head in Castine, likely in late May. There, it will undergo 18 months of testing and data collection from more than 200 sensors, UMaine officials said.
“This will inform UMaine and other researchers’ understanding of how the patented technology reduces motions in naturally occurring wind and waves, and how the floating platform interacts with the environment and essential marine activities like fishing and lobstering,” they said. “The unique damping system, which is similar to what is used in tall buildings in regions prone to earthquakes, makes the hull lighter, smaller and less costly to construct than versions previously tested by others.”
Samantha Warren, spokesperson for University of Maine, declined to comment on the Trump administration’s position on wind power development, but said the research being done at UMaine to develop floating wind turbines is expected to be helpful for other marine activities, including research and other industrial applications.
She also said that the successful launch of the floating hull and the anticipated deployment of the fully-assembled turbine are milestones UMaine must meet as conditions of a $12.5 million grant it won last year from the federal Department of Energy. The federal grant is helping to fund the development project.
The site off Dyce Head is where a smaller prototype, which was the first floating turbine in the nation to be connected to a distribution grid, was previously tested in 2013. Data collected from testing of that one-eighth scale prototype was used to design the quarter-scale version currently being assembled, UMaine officials said.
“We’re proud to have our crews work alongside the University of Maine engineering team on the fabrication of the floating turbine hull,” said N.S. Giles President Shane Giles, whose company was one of multiple Maine businesses involved in developing the newest prototype. He said the Bangor-based company had more than 20 workers who participated in the project.