Test of Floating Wind Turbine at US Site Next Year

The floating deep water wind turbine test installation 3 miles off Monhegan Island in the Gulf of Maine is held back until 2013

A report by Christine Parrish in 'The Free Press informs that' the testing of a floating deep water wind turbine that was scheduled to take place two miles off Monhegan Island this summer has been postponed until 2013, according to Habib Dagher, the director of the University of Maine AEWC Advanced Structures and Composites Center. Dagher is at the forefront of an effort to develop deep water wind farms 20 to 40 miles off the coast in the Gulf of Maine.

Dagher said that some permits were still pending for the Monhegan site, but that he expected them to be approved in the next two to three months, which will push the launch date to next summer.

The turbine will be deployed at the test site for four months, then removed.

Scientific data being collected at the Monhegan site will provide baseline information for comparison after the test turbine is sited. Bird and bat studies were completed last summer, said Dagher. Fish and other marine life studies are ongoing, as are underwater acoustic studies. Wind data has been collected for over a decade in the Gulf of Maine.

The Monhegan turbine, at 100 feet tall, will be a one-third scale model of the turbines that are destined for an offshore location in the Gulf of Maine in the future. The turbine will be anchored to a semi-submerged triangular platform made of three pontoons. The platform will be tethered to the bottom.

Dagher said the semi-submersible unit performed well in the recent testing in the Netherlands and was selected among three tested floating models for its stability and ease of launching from shore.