Via David Wojick
The state of Maine just received a very strange offshore wind lease from the federal government. They call it a research lease as opposed to a commercial development lease. It has some mysterious features that are worth pondering.
There may even be a billion-dollar scam going on here. We’ll look at that at the end, after briefly explaining the mystery.
First of all, the lease is for a 144 MW “research array,” as they call it. Well, 144 MW is a lot for research. The South Fork Wind (fixed, not floating) site that is operating is a 132 MW commercial facility, with 12 turbines, so the array will be larger than commercial.
It could cost $3 billion plus the cost of the plant to produce a dozen or so floats. Different sites suggest different turbine sizes ranging from 10 to 12 MW. Of course, if this is really a study, they could use different sizes, but the total is still huge.
Why it’s so big is the first mystery, and the official explanations are too vague to justify it. They mostly talk about research on things like efficiency, supply chains, and even jobs.
They also said the research would feed into commercial floating wind projects, which are rated at 15,000 MW in the Gulf of Maine. But that seems unlikely because the research takes time.
Commercial leases in the Bay are expected to be sold in the coming months (Biden-Harris supporters want as many leases as possible before the election, or Trump will win.) Research properties must go through the same licensing processes as commercial locations.
The development of commercial sites and the development of research sites are starting at the same time and going through similar steps. So it is difficult to see how commercial sites can benefit from research, especially since research is likely to slow down the development of the sites. Research done after the sites are up and running will happen even later after the commercial sites are up and running. So who will benefit from this multi-billion dollar research is a second mystery.
It seems clear who will pay these billions, as the developer is said to be negotiating a power purchase agreement (PPA) with one or more of Maine’s major utilities. The developer appears to be Diamond Offshore Wind, owned by Mitsubishi Corporation, which has been heavily involved in floating wind technology patented by the University of Maine for a long time.
This is where things get really murky. First, if a PPA is supposed to pay for the array, plus profits, then it is a commercial development. Second, research is expensive and unpredictable, so how can there be a PPA upfront to pay for it?
There’s no mention of the research being funded separately from the array, which would be complicated, to say the least. For that matter, who decides what research gets done as things progress? Diamond, the University, or the State of Maine? It seems like Diamond works for Maine, but it needs to make money off the deal, which makes things very strange.
That said, there is another possibility. This project is not about research but about building a buoy manufacturing plant and demonstrating the university’s technology.
There is one monster wild card in the floating wind game, and that is the power plant. Fixed bottom wind is simple onshore. All you need is a good dock, a big crane, and a place to put the components until they are delivered and installed. There are only a few simple components—the monopole, the tower, the turbine, and the blades. All of which are manufactured elsewhere.
Floating wind is built from the ground up and then towed to an offshore location. Uni’s patented technology uses concrete pontoons that can weigh 15,000 tonnes or more and are complex structures. Building the pontoons at a factory would be a huge undertaking.
This fact about buoyancy is rarely mentioned, and when it is mentioned, the language is often deceptive. The industry speaks of “ports,” not factories, and the Maine buoy factory is called a port. See mine. Note that the plant will be operated by Diamond.
So here’s what might happen. As part of the “study,” Maine built the float plant and enough floats to prove that the patented Uni- technology works. Developers of the 15,000 MW of commercial wind in the Gulf have to choose the technology for their various sites. If they choose any other technology, out of over a hundred candidates, they’ll have to build the plant to do it.
The fact that the Uni-tech factory already exists is a strong incentive to use that technology. We are talking about $100 billion or more in floaters. In this scenario, Diamond makes a huge amount of money, and so do the University of Maine and the State of Maine. So do all the suppliers and workers. Whether all of this is legal or not is questionable because proving a patented floater technology is not research.
Please note that I am not claiming that this is what is going on, but it certainly makes sense given the research that is being done. The main hurdle is that Uni-technology has never been built at the 10-12 MW scale and may not be feasible. Also, the plant designs I have seen are inefficient, but that is a separate issue.
Watching this two-hundred billion dollar game play out is going to be really interesting.
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