Maine

Maine has a long-standing tradition of maritime industry through boat building, fabrication, commercial fishing, composite research and innovation. Maine is also well positioned to lead the U.S. in the commercialization of deep-water offshore wind technologies, directly addressing its stated priorities of energy security, economic growth, job creation and renewable wind energy. With an aggressive RPS of 40% by 2017 and some of the best offshore wind resources in the world, Maine has positioned itself to be a leader in deep-water offshore wind development.  Wind resource maps show strong Class 6 winds in water depths exceeding 50m off the coast of Maine, which could provide up to 5 GW of renewable energy.

Maine will establish one or more deep-water offshore wind test sites by the end of 2009. Research and demonstration of the WindFloat at one of these sites will be implemented through the collaborative efforts of Principle Power, the University of Maine, Cianbro, BIW and other DeepCWind consortium members.

Funding support for the demonstration effort was initiated in October 2009 when the US Department of Energy awarded $8 million USD to the University of Maine and it’s DeepCWind consortium. The proposal called for the University of Maine to investigate deep-water offshore wind energy generation and to design and deploy10-kilowatt and one 100-kilowatt prototypes to be mounted on floating offshore foundations. The first prototypes are scheduled to be in the water as early as the spring of 2011.