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November 12, 2013

UMaine starts midcoast offshore wind power meetings

Maine Aqua Ventus, the University of Maine-led offshore wind pilot project, will hold community meetings this week in midcoast towns where the project could come ashore to connect to the commercial power grid.

The Associated Press reported the first of three meetings will take place today in Friendship. The others will take place Nov. 14 in Bristol and Nov. 25 in Port Clyde.

Jake Ward, who manages the project in his role as the University of Maine's vice president for innovation and economic development, told Mainebiz that the university-led consortium is still refining the pathway for the cable from the pilot project to come ashore and the ideal time of year for installing it.

The university pilot project aims to locate a 12 megawatt, two-turbine floating wind power system south of Monhegan Island. The project now has a one-eighth-scale test turbine off of Castine. So far, Ward said, the consortium will deliver a full report on the performance of that test in the spring, in advance of the project’s application for one of three $46.6 million federal grants that would support the Monhegan pilot project. That project aims to prove the viability of a 500 megawatt, commercial-scale wind farm in the Gulf of Maine.

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