The University of Maine has won an $8 million grant to develop a deepwater offshore wind test center in Maine. The Recovery Act funds will be supplemented by another $14 million in funds from other federal sources, according to Maine's congressional delegation. The money will be focused on researching and developing floating offshore wind turbine platforms.
In a media conference call this afternoon U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Maine has "enormous promise for wind energy." "Maine is a leader in wind energy," Chu said, "with over 100 megawatts of installed capacity."
Gov. John Baldacci, who participated in the conference call, said the grant is the beginning of a major effort to establish wind power capacity off Maine's shores.
"This grant represents the foundation of an effort that will lead to the deployment of the first 25-megawatt floating ocean wind farm in the world in 10 years, and dramatically advances Maine's plan to work collaboratively with private partners to achieve 5 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030," Baldacci said. "Over time this initiative calls for $20 billion of capital investment over 20 years to build this capacity."
The $8 million grant is part of a $24 million dollar federal initiative to support research and development of windpower in the U.S.
At the same time, Congress sent President Obama the final Energy and Water Appropriations bill, which contains additional funding for clean energy projects at the University of Maine, including $5,000,000 to design, test and deploy composite floating wind turbine platforms in the Gulf of Maine to generate renewable energy, $1,000,000 for work on tidal energy and $250,000 for composite wind blade manufacturing technology.