A floating concrete casing developed by UMaine researchers for offshore wind turbines was tested near Castine in 2013. The proximity of this type of research and technology, called VolturnUS, makes the Gulf of Maine attractive to wind developers. Photo by the Center for Advanced Structures and Composites at the University of Maine

Maine will move closer to staking a claim in offshore wind development when the federal government tries Tuesday to auction off eight areas for commercial wind energy leases in the Gulf of Maine.

The Office of Ocean Energy Management will provide locations encompassing 850,000 acres off Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. If fully developed, the areas have a total potential capacity of about 13 gigawatts, which could power more than 4.5 million homes. federal officials say.

“To see us get to this point where commercial leases are being offered to developers is a big step,” said Jack Shapiro, director of climate and clean energy at the Maine Natural Resources Board. “For Maine and the region as a whole, floating offshore wind is an indispensable part of the clean energy resources we need to replace natural gas.”

Natural gas emits carbon dioxide and its price is volatile; it was costly for consumers when global energy markets were affected by the pandemic in 2020-21 and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

About two-thirds of U.S. offshore wind energy potential is in waters too deep for wind turbines that require foundations anchored to the seabed, conformable to the US Department of Energy. Instead, floating platforms, such as those planned for the Gulf of Maine, will be used.

THE ADVANTAGES OF THE GULF OF TOMORROW

The Gulf of Maine has two advantages over other sites, said Sam Salustro, senior vice president for policy at the Oceantic Network, which advocates for the offshore wind industry and its supply chains. Maine has an established system to buy electricity generated from wind power, and Massachusetts will need tremendous offshore wind to meet its carbon reduction goals, he said.

In addition, the components needed to build floating wind turbines are already being developed, he said. The 2023 Maine Offshore Wind Roadmap said nearly 80 Maine firms are engaged in the offshore wind industry or are in a position to do so for permitting, product, surveying, engineering, marine operations and other functions.

“There’s a level of certainty that you don’t see everywhere in the world,” Salustro said.

Other assets are “some of the best and most consistent winds” in the Gulf of Maine, said Habib Dagher, executive director of the Center for Advanced Structures and Composites at the University of Maine, which designs and builds wind turbines for a range of research.

While it’s not known how much money the Gulf of Maine auction will bring in, Salustro said it “will have to be in the millions.” An auction of nearly 278,000 acres of ocean leases off Delaware, Maryland and Virginia in August brought in approximately $93 million.

Following the Gulf of Maine auction, the winning bidder must submit plans for environmental, technical and public reviews before federal officials authorize a project. Shapiro said it could be the early to mid-2030s before commercial projects are up and running.

MAINE’S WIND POWER CLAIM

The state has already lined up for the energy that will be generated offshore. The Legislature and Governor Janet Mills enacted a justice in 2023, requiring the development of at least 3 GW of wind power by 2040 in “federal waters,” the site of leased areas.

The Act established the Maine Offshore Renewable Energy and Economic Development Program, which, among its other functions, supports the development of deepwater offshore wind energy projects and transportation infrastructure in the Gulf of Maine.

“We don’t control the projects because they’re in federal waters, but we can set standards through power procurement,” Shapiro said.

Not all attempts at federal auctions yielded leases. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management canceled a Gulf of Mexico lease sale in July “due to a lack of competitive interest” and said it may move forward in the future depending on industry interest. The agency put off an Oct. 15 offshore wind auction off the Oregon coast, also due to insufficient interest.

Federal officials he announced in March, they selected a 2 million acre site in the Gulf of Maine for an offshore floating wind project. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said the site, about 23 miles to 92 miles offshore, is 80 percent smaller than the originally planned wind energy area after consulting with tribes, residents, the fishing industry and others .

The Interior Department, which oversees the ocean energy bureau, says the Gulf of Maine lease area avoids conflicts with lobster fisheries, North Atlantic right whale habitat and other fishing areas and habitats, and seeks to avoid most historic and current areas. tribal fishing grounds.

The New England Fisherman’s Stewardship Association is not swayed. It said in September, when federal officials released the lease areas and announced sales that it “remains strongly opposed to the industrialization of our oceans despite shrinking the originally proposed lease area.”

Leased areas in the southern Gulf of Maine “comprise a Great Wall of Windmills that threaten mariners and the marine environment,” the group said.

The Biden administration has set a goal of deploying 30 GW of offshore wind by 2030 and 15 GW of floating offshore wind by 2035, though analysts have warned that the target may not be met. Offshore wind would have the capacity to generate more than 30 GW by 2033, conformable to a BloombergNEF projection. Inflation that makes supply chain elements more expensive is blamed for undercutting faster growth.

A nuclear reactor produces about 1 GW, enough for 750,000 homes, according to BloombergNEF.

Two offshore wind projects were built this year: South Fork Wind off the east end of New York’s Long Island and Vineyard Wind 1 off Massachusetts.

RESEARCH DATA AND COMMERCIAL WIND POWER

Office of Ocean Energy Management he announced in August, the first U.S. floating offshore wind research lease. The area covers about 15,000 acres 28 nautical miles off Maine and could allow up to 12 floating offshore wind turbines capable of generating up to 144 megawatts. It is separate from the commercial leasing process.

Dagher said ecological, environmental and other data collected by the University of Maine research array will provide information to developers selected by the Office of Ocean Wind Management.

“We expect that many of the developers who will be bidding on the Gulf of Maine will talk to us about what they can learn from this experiment, how they can use it to build farms in the future, especially in the Gulf of Maine,” he said.

Fourteen energy companies are “legally, technically and financially qualified to bid” conformable to Office of Ocean Energy Management: Avangrid Renewables LLC, Equinor Wind US LLC, Mainstream Renewable Power Inc., Diamond Offshore Wind, Hexicon USA LLC, Seaglass Offshore Wind II LLC, TotalEnergies SBE US LLC, Pine Tree Offshore Wind LLC, energyRe Offshore Wind Holdings, LLC, OW Gulf of Maine LLC, Repsol Renewables North America Inc., Maine Offshore Wind Development LLC, Corio USA Projectco LLC and Invenergy NE Offshore Wind LLC.

A recent setback for Maine was rejection by the US Department of Transportation of a $456 million grant to build a wind port at Sears Island, where turbines will be built and shipped to the Gulf of Maine. The state said it will continue to look for other ways to secure funding.

Chris Wissemann, chief executive of Diamond Offshore Wind, one of the bidders for the lease areas, said Maine “will be in a much stronger position” to get federal money when it approves power purchases from the research array . The state can more clearly demonstrate its commitment to floating offshore wind and a port built in phases, first for the research project and later for commercial-scale wind power, he said.

Department of the Interior said in April, it expected four potential offshore lease sales this year, one each in 2025 and 2026, two in 2027 and four in 2028. Sales are anticipated in the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, Pacific and offshore US territories. That was before the cancellation of the Gulf of Mexico lease sale and the postponement of the Oregon auction.

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