Design of Floating Wind Turbine Concrete Hull

PI: Anthony Viselli (Advanced Structures and Composites Center, UMaine)

Abstract: The RRF funding will be used to complete final design engineering efforts of two VolturnUS floating concrete hulls that support 6MW offshore wind turbines. Offshore wind is Maine’s largest untapped renewable resource with 156 GW of capacity within 50 miles of shore. Floating turbine technology is required to harness this huge resource because of the deep waters in the Gulf of Maine. The New England Aqua Ventus project consists of two x 6 MW units 2.5 miles South of Monhegan Island. This will be the first floating wind project in the US, and will position Maine to lead in a global industry expected to exceed $146 Billion in the US in the next decade1. The unique VolturnUS concrete hull technology developed and patented by UMaine has been shown to achieve a competitive commercial cost of electricity to 7.7 cents/kWh. The proposed project will leverage a $37M DOE grant in 2019 in addition to $123M of private investment to construct the demonstration project. The project will connect to the grid in 2020, create 1,500 Maine jobs, and allow the construction of larger commercial farms which will potentially bring billions of dollars to Maine and create thousands of Maine jobs.