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MHT's Julie Donnelly: FloDesign Wind Turbine grows in Mass.
The Ocean Energy Institute will hold a grand opening for its new office in Rockland, Maine, on Tuesday, with plans to pursue offshore wind projects in the Gulf of Maine.
The organization, a nonprofit founded in 2007 by investment banker Matthew Simmons, has been working to research and promote offshore wind production in Maine, said director Robert West.
“We’ve been focused on the fact that really offshore wind is the biggest (energy) resource we have in Maine,” West said.
Now that the idea is being taken seriously — as shown by Maine’s offshore wind bill passed and signed into law in April — the team behind the Ocean Energy Institute is preparing to form a corporation that could work to develop offshore projects, West said. The new corporation also plans to acquire other entities involved in offshore wind technologies, he said. It should be formed by the end of the year, and the eventual goal is to go public, West said.
After several years of working out of their homes, the staff of the Ocean Energy Institute moved to their first office in Rockland in April. The office has a staff of four, and two other employees work remotely.
Maine has put a target goal of harnessing 5 gigawatts of power from wind generated off Maine’s coasts by 2030, which would require an estimated $25 billion at current costs, West said. The state already has multiple wind farms in operation and under development at inland sites.
The state’s emphasis on its fishing and tourism industries, however, necessitates putting the turbines in deeper waters than typically proposed for offshore wind projects, he said. The goal is to look at placing the turbines 10 to 20 miles from shore, which would require floating turbine systems, West said. Floating turbines are not widely used currently.
Simmons founded Simmons & Co., an investment bank focused on the energy industry, in 1974. He will be spending more time working at the Ocean Energy Institute after leaving Simmons & Co. in June, Simmons told the Houston Business Journal earlier this month. Simmons has also gained notoriety for his outspoken views on the topic of peak oil, which generally holds that conventional oil supplies could be depleted within decades.
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