Media cover venture to develop floating offshore wind demonstration project
A number of media organizations covered the University of Maine announcement that two industry heavyweights are investing in the development of a pioneer floating offshore wind technology project. Diamond Offshore Wind, a subsidiary of Mitsubishi company, is joining with RWE Renewables to invest $100 million to build and deploy a full-scale, floating wind farm 14 miles off Maine’s coast. The new company, called New England Aqua Ventus, will collaborate with the UMaine Advanced Structures and Composites Center that is designing, engineering, researching and monitoring the floating platform technology. The full-scale project, which features a giant turbine on a floating, concrete hull made of concrete, is expected to be completed by 2023 and could create 350 jobs. “This will likely be the first project in the U.S. of commercial scale, if all goes according to schedule,” Habib Dagher, executive director of the UMaine Composites Center, told the Portland Press Herald. Its sister papers, the Sun Journal, Morning Sentinel and Kennebec Journal carried the PPH article. Northeast Energy News linked to the Portland Press Herald piece; the New Hampshire Union Leader printed the PPH story. Maine Public, 4C Offshore, renews.biz and WVII (Channel 7) also reported the development. Bangor Daily News ran the UMaine media release. The Associated Press, OffshoreWIND.biz and Windpower Monthly also reported on the project. The Washington Times and the Journal Record (Oklahoma) ran the AP story. Mainebiz used information in the UMaine media release for its story.