Statoil Seeks U.S. Lease for Floating Wind Farm Off Maine Coast

Andrew Herndon, Bloomberg
August 10, 2012 | 2 Comments

Statoil ASA, Norway's state- controlled oil company, is seeking permission to build a wind farm with floating turbines off the U.S. Atlantic coast.

Statoil requested a commercial lease for its Hywind Maine project, which will have four turbines with 12 megawatts of capacity about 12 nautical miles (22 kilometers) from shore, the U.S. Interior Department said today in a statement.

The agency has awarded only one commercial lease for offshore wind development, for the Cape Wind project in Massachusetts’s Nantucket Sound, which has been in development for a decade and hasn’t begun construction. The Obama administration is seeking to accelerate the review of renewable- energy projects on the outer continental shelf and is considering proposals for offshore wind farms in 16 states on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, all using standard turbines.

“This is the first time that this innovative floating technology is being considered for development in deeper waters offshore our coasts,” David Hayes, deputy secretary of the Interior, said in the statement.

The agency is also evaluating proposals for undersea transmission lines that may connect 7 gigawatts of offshore wind farms in the mid-Atlantic.

The Interior Department has begun an environmental review of the proposed area and also will determine whether there’s competitive interest from other developers. The review will be completed faster if Statoil, based in Stavanger, Norway, is the only company planning offshore wind farms in the area, according to the statement.

2 Comments

Bob Wallace
August 12, 2012

A foreign oil company wants to install wind turbines off the US coast and sell us electricity.

There's something so delicious about that....

Allen Gerhardt
August 12, 2012

What is the value of an environmental review for 4 turbines, offshore? This seems like a false roadblock to renewable energy which could only have value to vested utility interests in eliminating competition for electric sales. What is the value of environmental reviews for solar systems? There is no technology ever invented with less impact than solar power, so obviously it has the least impact. Wind offshore has what negative impact? Floating platforms even remove the sea floor disturbance of construction of a base. A single ship at anchor would seem to have as much impact as a floating turbine base. The connection cable would be just lying on the sea floor. And then to require these pointless studies on every project makes no sense except as a delay tactic.