November 16, 2010 - DeepCWind off Monhegan

Yesterday I looked at the DeepCWind consortium's plan to develop an offshore wind test site in the waters south of the island of Monhegan, Maine.

[Photo: Manana Island, seen from the approach to Monhegan.]

The members of the DeepCWind consortium are arranged into 8 function-oriented task groups.  These tasks are:

• Task 1: Micrositing, Geophysical Investigations, and Geotechnical Engineering
• Task 2: Study of Environmental/Ecological Impacts
• Task 3: Permitting and Policy
• Task 4: Floating Turbine Design, Material Selection, and Lab Testing
• Task 5: Offshore Turbine Testing, Monitoring, and Reliability
• Task 6: Education and Outreach
• Task 7: Project Management and Reporting
• Task 8: Fabrication and Deployment

Each task group is in turn composed of between two and thirteen consortium members, drawn from academia, government and private business. For example, consortium members in the fabrication and deployment track include the following:

• AEWC Advanced Structures and Composites Center
• Cianbro Corporation
• General Dynamics Bath Iron Works
• Maine Maritime Academy
• Bangor Hydro Electric Company
• Central Maine Power Company
• Technip USA
• Reed and Reed

These members thus include the University of Maine's AEWC center, utilities, major contractors in the energy space, and marine-related businesses.

In the next years, members of the consortium will continue to collaborate as they work on testing both the offshore energy potential for Monhegan wind, as well as the technologies needed to harvest and transmit that offshore wind energy to serve load.