Offshore Wind Wire

By Peter Brennan

An ambitious piece of offshore wind legislation received unanimous support from the Maine Utilities and Energy Committee this week after it was amended to focus on deepwater wind harnessed further from the shore by floating turbines.

LD 1810, An Act to Implement the Recommendations of the Governor’s Ocean Energy Task Force, was originally heard by the committee on Mar. 11 and had been the subject of intense debate for the past two weeks.

The amended version of LD 1810 would allow supporters of offshore wind energy, including the state and the University of Maine, to buy it at an increased rate to help defray the higher costs associated with production.  This option would appear on electric bills as the “Ocean Wind Green Standard Offer.”

The bill also places emphasis on developing wind farms in deep water, more than ten miles offshore, to counteract local concerns about the impact of near shore wind turbines.

The amendment that was eventually accepted by the committee was drafted by the University of Maine. It garnered the support of the fishing and lobster industries when they learned that the amendment would focus on the development of deep-water projects and remove the incentives for near-shore wind farms, where the majority of fishing and lobstering takes place.

The emphasis on deepwater wind will be economically and culturally advantageous, according to Dr. Habib Dagher, director of the AEWC Advanced Structures and Composites Center and Bath Ironworks Professor of Structural Engineering at the University of Maine.

“Class 7 wind is available 20 miles offshore in the Gulf of Maine, that is where we need to put the turbines” said Dagher. “The wind is much better, and public acceptance will not be as much of a problem.”

Maine is attempting to position itself as the hub of deepwater wind technology development. The lab that Dr. Dagher oversees at the University of Maine was selected out of 160 entrants and awarded a $12.4M Department of Commerce grant to advance deepwater floating turbine technology. When the current lab is expanded, Dagher will have the capability to manufacture and test floating turbine components under one roof.