An experimental offshore wind power allocation designed a decade ago reached a major milestone on Wednesday.
The University of Maine will work with New England Aqua Ventus LLC, which includes two global power corporations that are making a $100 million investment in the project. This investment adds to the $47 million in grants that have already been granted through the U.S. Department of Energy.
Diamond Offshore Wind, a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Corp., and RWE Renewables, the world’s largest offshore wind company, have joined the public-private partnership, the university announced Wednesday. The goal is to show the feasibility of a large-scale floating wind turbine in deep water, where winds are more consistent and turbine blades are not visible to the mainland.
Chris Wisseman, CEO of Diamond Offshore Wind, said his company and RWE recently accounted for about a quarter of the world’s offshore wind power supply, the maximum of which is produced in shallow coastal waters.
“Or we’re very interested in floating offshore wind power,” Wisseman said. “The offshore wind has taken off over the past decade and the flotation has settled in places like Maine, California and Japan, where the oceans are deep.”
Using a floating concrete hull with a boxed design and a box commonly used to build bridges, the assignment will consist of a 10 to 12 megawatt wind turbine 2 miles south of Monhegan Island and 14 miles off the coast of Maine. Three moorings will anchor the hull in three hundred feet of water.
“The good thing about this generation is that it can be manufactured locally,” said Dr. Habib Dagher, executive director of the university’s Center for Advanced Structures and Compounds, where he invented the VolturnUS helmet generation. “It also helps maintain local jobs.”
Other benefits of concrete hulls over metal helmets are lower cost, higher availability and increased corrosion resistance, Dagher said. Concrete helmets are designed to last a hundred years, up to 25 years for metal. This means that concrete hulls could be reused after installing a new turbine.
Another assignment of the same scale in Maine proposed through a offshore wind developer formerly known as Statoil, now Equinor. The $120 million proposal defected in 2013 after facing opposition from former governor Paul LePage.
“It’s our ‘aha’ moment, ” said Dagher. “We’ve learned a lot.”
In late 2019, the Maine Public Utilities Commission approved a 20-year force acquisition agreement that requires Central Maine Power Co. gain electricity generated through the floating wind project.
Conditions, originally minted in 2013, require CMP residential consumers to pay 23 cents in line with the kilowatt hour in the first year (at least 3 times the market value) and gradually more years later, 35 cents counting after 20 years. That’s 73 cents more consistent with the month, or about $8.70, of the average home bill in the first year of the contract.
However, efforts to combat climate replacement and recent investments in coastal wind projects involve a giant, untapped market for floating generation that can be implemented from the coast.
“It’s a bit of a difficult race for other designers like Dr. Dagher to develop his technology, and it turns out to be the best,” said Wissemann of Mitsubishi’s subsidiary.
The UMaine Center for Composite and Advanced Structures will continue its design and engineering, and progression and post-construction tracking activities. To date, the VolturnUS generation has received 43 patents and is lately being licensed through UMaine to New England Aqua Ventus for this project. Aqua Ventus will own and manage permits, construction, assembly, deployment and ongoing operations.
If everything goes according to plan, the platforms and column segments will be built in Brewer with turbine parts assembled in the Hulls of Searsport and towed to the checkArray A transmission cable of just under 6 inches in diameter will be installed and will bring electrical power from the mainland.
After obtaining the permissions, the deployment is expected until 2023.
“This will probably be the first advertising assignment in the U.S. If everything goes according to plan,” Dagher said. “When we first introduced this assignment nearly 12 years ago, there were 3 technologies in the world, ours and two more. Today, there are 30 to 40 … so a career.”
The 4 members of the Maine Congress delegation issued a joint Wednesday on the association’s announcement.
“For generations, Maine has been a national leader in our sustainably herbal resources to create jobs, protect our environment, and fuel our economy,” said Senators Susan Collins and Angus King, as well as representatives. Chellie Pingree and Jared Golden said in the statement. “The allocation of floating wind in deep water from the University of Maine continues this tradition. We strongly support the progression of UMaine from the Aqua Ventus assignment. We are proud to see the progress of the assignment and welcome the $100 million public-private partnership introduced (Wednesday), which drive UMaine’s progression of its cutting-edge generation and create jobs. Maine’s perspective on offshore wind resources is 36 times greater than the state’s electricity demand, making this task so vital to maine’s blank energy future.”
Wisseman said one facet of the task is to succeed in the fishing industry and treat the floating platform as a type of laboratory, explore environmental effects and expand more productive practices to coexist with classic marine activities.
Gov. Janet Mills, who campaigned to update LePage on a platform with a greater focus on renewable energy, announced Wednesday that Maine will be enrolled in New Hampshire and Massachusetts for a regional working group similar to renewable energy activities in federal waters in the Gulf of Maine. .
“This new public-private partnership joins world-class offshore wind developers and the University of Maine, and calls for organizing the country’s first floating offshore wind energy allocation, reflecting the great opportunity for economic expansion for the blank energy economy.” Mills said in a ready statement. “I am pleased that this assignment is progressing and encouraged by the strong commitment of partners to paintings with Maine fishermen to protect and our classic industries while we plan a greener long term for our state.”
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