Alfond W2 Ocean Engineering Lab

Maine Aqua Ventus February Newsletter

Click here to view the Maine Aqua Ventus February Newsletter. Maine Aqua Ventus I, GP, LLC, is leading a demonstration project called New England Aqua Ventus I, a 12 MW floating offshore wind pilot project to develop a clean, renewable energy source off Maine’s shores. In an ongoing effort to continue to share project milestones with communities and […]

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UMaine, Kleinschmidt Associates announce naming gift in support of Windstorm Challenge

Click here to sign up or learn more about this year’s competition. The University of Maine Advanced Structures and Composites Center and Kleinschmidt Associates, headquartered in Pittsfield, Maine, have announced a naming gift to support the Windstorm Challenge, a STEM competition at UMaine for Maine middle school and high school students, focusing on renewable energy, […]

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UMaine engineers make waves in naval architecture

A tiny storm rages at the University of Maine’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center. Simulated wind and waves beat against the hull of a model FPSO vessel in conditions comparable to a 100-year storm off the coast of western Africa. Watching from the side of the wind-wave basin in the Alfond W2 Ocean Engineering Laboratory, […]

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Floating Offshore Wind Patent Issued

A U.S. Patent for floating offshore wind research at the UMaine Advanced Structures and Composites Center has been issued. The U.S. Patent Application No. 13/883,652 titled “Floating Hybrid Composite Wind Turbine Platform and Tower System,” was approved, and the U.S. Patent Office issued U.S. Patent No. 9,518,564 on December 13, 2016. This is the Center’s 34th patent. The inventors are […]

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UMaine Wind Turbine Test Lab Complete

The new wind turbine blade test lab at the 37,000-foot expansion of the University of Maine AEWC Advanced Structures and Composites Center in Orono is complete and equipment testing is currently under way, according to Paul Melrose, the project manager for research and development. The lab equipment is being calibrated and tested, with commercial clients […]

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Offshore wind turbine research in Maine gets boost

ORONO — A $3 million federal grant to a University of Maine research center will be used for another piece of the puzzle in building windmills to harness the bountiful winds off Maine’s coast to produce energy. Habib Dagher of the Advanced Structures and Composites Center said the center will use the money for a […]

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UMaine deepwater offshore wind technology tests proceeding in the Netherlands

The team from UMaine’s AEWC Advanced Structures and Composites Center, is testing 1/50th-scale models at an offshore wind basin owned by a Dutch company called Marin. Three different types of floating platforms are being tested 16 hours a day and are being subjected to different wind and wave intensity levels that mimic conditions in the […]

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Deepwater wind power given boost from report

Giant wind turbine installations floating more than 10 miles off the Maine coast could be able to generate electricity at rates competitive with conventional sources in 2020, according to a report being released today by the University of Maine. University researchers say it seems possible to hit a target of 8-10 cents a kilowatt hour […]

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Official hopes firms will put turbines in Gulf of Maine

ORONO, Maine — Middle East instability may be one reason more people than expected attended or tuned in online Tuesday to a wind power developers conference at the University of Maine. As popular uprisings have broken out in Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and elsewhere, the price of oil has been rising, pushed up by uncertainty […]

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First Maine Offshore Wind Farm in 2016

Habib Dagher, director of AEWC Advanced Structures and Composites Center at the University of Maine, said Tuesday that the first ocean-based wind turbine will be installed off Monhegan in 2012, followed by one turbine 20 miles offshore in 2013, and then several turbines in a wind farm also located 20 miles offshore in 2016.  A […]

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