Maine State Legislature approves plan to deploy floating offshore wind turbines - WMTW Portland

Maine State Legislature approves plan to deploy floating offshore wind turbines

Renewable energy to mitigate climate change and achieve emission reductions by 2040

The Maine State Legislature has approved a comprehensive plan to develop offshore wind during the next two decades, enacting the legislation early Wednesday morning , with dual goals of reducing earth-warming carbon dioxide emissions caused by burning fossil fuels for electricity and creating green jobs.

Democratic Maine Governor Janet Mills is expected to sign the bill into law, in accordance with her offshore wind roadmap released earlier this yea r.

The plan charts a course to lead the nation in deploying floating offshore wind turbines in the vast Gulf of Maine.

The bill authorizes the Maine Public Utilities Commission to procure energy from dozens of turbines, whose platforms and hulls are being designed at the University of Maine.

"We are years away, but unless we start this process, it's not going to happen," the bill sponsor, Sen. Mark Lawrence, a York County Democrat and Co-Chair of the Legislature’s Energy, Utilities, and Technology Committee, said in an interview.

Lawrence unveiled his bill at the start of the legislative session in January, envisioming potentially hundreds of turbines up to 400 feet tall.

“The overall big picture is to build a diversified portfolio of renewable energy for the state of Maine,” Lawrence said. “So, we have a very balanced supply of energy that we don't have to rely on carbon-based fuels.”

The plan intends to boost homegrown, clean, renewable energy for homes, businesses, and transportation, with protections for wildlife and fishing, for example, keeping turbines in distant waters away from prime lobstering zones.

Lawrence said, "We want them beyond the horizon, so they cannot be seen from shore. So, that puts it about at least 30 miles out."

Turbine platforms and hulls will be built at a new deepwater port – a coastal location to be determined -- creating hundreds of full-time construction jobs paid at or above a union rate and with good benefits.

"We have decades worth of work ahead of us, and that work is going to be high road, family sustaining work,” Jason Shedlock, President, Maine State Building & Construction Trades Council, the state’s largest construction worker union, said in an interview. “For union or nonunion, it’s giving everyone an opportunity to have a chance at the type of jobs with benefits that our members have.”

Depending how many floating turbines are deployed, the Natural Resources Council of Maine predicts wind energy could power up to half of Maine's economy by 2040.

Shedlock said, “It’s not like we’re creating an offshore wind workforce. We're creating and growing a construction workforce that can build offshore wind but can also turn around and build your local school or rebuild a hospital."

A coalition of labor leaders and environmentalists, businesses and the State Chamber of Commerce has pushed for an offshore wind plan.

Lawrence argues economic benefits from renewable energy will also extend to consumers.

He said, "The price of wind doesn't go up, the price of the sun doesn't go up. So, you're really paying only for the price of the construction of the facility."