Wind

Statoil Pulls Floating Offshore Wind Project in Maine

Norwegian energy company Statoil last week canceled its $120 million project to put four 3-MW wind turbines on floating spar-buoy structures 12 miles offshore of Maine’s Boothbay Harbor.

The Maine Public Utilities Commission (MPUC) had in January 2013 approved terms of Statoil’s proposed Hywind Maine project, and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management last year found no competitive interest in an area where Statoil had requested a commercial wind lease. However, Gov. Paul LePage (R) in July signed a bill that allows the University of Maine to bid for an offshore wind project in the state’s waters, saying “prior to moving forward with a $200 million contract, I would prefer to consider the economic opportunity to our own university system, right here in Maine.”

Statoil, which had promised to spend at least $100 million with Maine-based suppliers and contractors, suspended its Hywind Maine project later that month, saying it needed to “assess the changes made to the law and the total risk picture in Maine going forward.”

Last week, the company announced its decision to exit the project and demobilize all activities and resources, citing “uncertainty around the total framework conditions in the state [and] the uncertainty around the commercial framework,” which had made the “project outlook become too uncertain.”

In a statement responding to Statoil’s decision, Gov. LePage said his administration “has been perfectly clear through the regulatory process that the term-sheet offered by Statoil was ironclad in its cost—placing a $200 million burden on Mainers by way of increasing electric costs. Additionally, the corporation was ambiguous in its commitment to growing Maine’s economy.”

Statoil installed the world’s first large-scale floating wind turbine in June 2009 (a POWER 2009 Top Plant) in the North Sea at a water depth of 220 meters (722 feet). This June, a consortium led by the University of Maine deployed one of the first concrete-composite floating platform wind turbines in the U.S. off the coast of Castine, Maine. The prototype is one-eighth the size of a 6-MW, 423-foot rotor diameter turbine design dubbed “VolturnUS.”

A larger offshore wind demonstration of that project, “Aqua Ventus I,” which would feature the full-scale turbine design, is in the works and is slated to be connected to the grid by 2016. Aqua Ventus I is one of seven offshore wind design and engineering projects announced last year by the DOE. The DOE said it is still currently conducting the engineering and design phase, but it intends to select up to three projects for additional funding in 2014 to support construction and installation.

Meanwhile, the much-watched Cape Wind offshore wind project under development in Nantucket Sound, Mass., could get under way this year after more than a decade of delays. The $2.6 billion project’s developer, Cape Wind Associates, last week said it expects to resolve the last lawsuits that have delayed the project by the end of the year. It must begin construction by Dec. 31 to earn the 30% federal investment tax credit.

Sonal Patel, associate editor (@POWERmagazine, @sonalcpatel)

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