Updated May 14 at 2:00 p.m.
A polarizing proposal to install floating wind turbines off Monhegan Island did not receive an important $47 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.
The Maine Aqua Ventus I project will receive a relatively modest $3 million to complete design and engineering work. The project will also serve as an alternate to the winners.
Aqua Ventus was one of six projects in competition for three $47 million grants. The U.S. Department of Energy awarded the grants to projects in New Jersey, Oregon and Virginia.
The department’s decision could place the future of the project in question.
“It’s hard to say right now,” University of Maine Vice President for Innovation and Economic Development Jake Ward said. “We really have to have a better understanding of what the Department of Energy’s expectations are.”
“Finding compatible ways to generate power that is renewable and sustainable while creating economic benefit for the people of Maine is still a worthy cause,” Ward said. “A small demonstration project is a way to learn and try to proceed in a pragmatic fashion.”
Maine Aqua Ventus I GP LLC is the company behind the project. The company’s general partners are Cianbro Corp., Emera Inc., and Maine Prime Technologies LLC, which represents the University of Maine.
The project would consist of two floating wind turbines in a test site about 3 miles south of Monhegan and 12 miles southeast of Bristol.
The Aqua Ventus proposal has encountered resistance from Lincoln County residents who have concerns about the project’s impact on commercial fishing and tourism, among other things.
Friends of Muscongus Bay, a Bristol-based group that opposes the project, welcomed the Department of Energy’s announcement.
“I think it gives us more time to continue to raise the concerns and issues we have with the test site itself,” said Andrew Fenniman, a founder and spokesman for the group.
Fenniman hopes to work with local legislators to take the Monhegan site “off the table” for the Aqua Ventus project or any future project.
Friends of Muscongus Bay is not “pro-wind or anti-wind,” Fenniman said. “The issue we really have is, we just think there are so many problems with this site – economically, environmentally, aesthetically, historically – it’s just a bad site.”
The group would like to see the state reopen the search for test sites. “We’re going to continue to meet and make sure we’re not losing momentum and we’re continuing to move forward,” Fenniman said.
Ward, the university vice president, said the Legislature selected the test site for a reason. “They went through a fairly long, public process,” Ward said. Maine Aqua Ventus now has four years of research invested in the site, he said.
“Designating a different test site would mean repeating all that background data collection,” Ward said. “The more information you have, the better you can understand what’s going to happen or measure impacts of what you do.”
Bristol and Monhegan have formed committees to gather information and act as liaisons to the project. The Monhegan Energy Task Force issued a statement about the decision.
The task force “was neither for nor against” Aqua Ventus, Co-chairwoman Marian Chioffi said in the statement. The purpose of the task force was to “keep island voices at the forefront” of the conversation about the project, she said.
The group hopes communications will continue and any future development at the site will take Monhegan’s best interests into account, Chioffi said.
Co-chairwoman Tara Hire also addressed the decision.
“Monhegan is a unique place and our economy is delicately balanced between fishing and tourism, both of which depend on the conservation of the environment on and around Monhegan,” Hire said.
The project would provide a significant benefit to the island in the form of electricity costs. The project’s contract with the Maine Public Utilities Commission requires it to provide free electricity to the Monhegan Plantation Power District.
“Monhegan has one of the highest electric rates in the country” at $0.70 per kilowatt hour, according to the task force’s statement. Aqua Ventus “presented the opportunity to tie into the wind turbines, reducing energy costs for islanders.”
Read more about this Monhegan’s struggle with this issue in the Bangor Daily News.
The Bristol Wind Power Advisory Committee had been scheduled to meet with project representatives May 13. Chairwoman Andrea Cox said a university representative postponed the meeting.
The representatives want to meet with the U.S. Department of Energy to discuss the project before they return to the committee. “They feel like they don’t have a clear idea, at this juncture, how they will be moving forward,” Cox said.
The committee will continue its work to gather information and represent Bristol’s interests if the project does proceed.
“I think we all recognize that, even though Maine Aqua Ventus didn’t get the money they wanted, the project may move forward at some point,” Cox said.
The committee’s work “has not ended, we just have a little bit more breathing room,” she said. “Personally, I’m relieved that we have a little more time to get things sorted out.”
