The University of Maine's (UMaine) Advanced Structures and Composites Center, NRG Systems Inc., AWS Truepower LLC, UMaine's Physical Oceanography Group and Leosphere SAS have established a research and development partnership to gather deepwater hub-height wind measurements in the Gulf of Maine.
UMaine will design and build a floating system to house a modified WINDCUBE v2 offshore LIDAR remote sensor, which has been adapted to a dynamic marine environment.
The floating system, which incorporates a LIDAR system that detects wind conditions using laser technology up to 200 meters above the ocean surface, is based on buoy technology developed and tested by UMaine's Physical Oceanography Group over the past decade in the Gulf of Maine and abroad.
AWS Truepower will validate the data collected by the floating system. The buoy is scheduled for deployment in 2013 at the UMaine deepwater offshore wind test site, an offshore wind and marine hydrokinetic device test site operated by the Advanced Structures and Composites Center and located 10 miles off the coast of Maine.
The center says it is actively developing and testing innovative floating wind turbines for deployment in deep water and that its floating foundation design will be the first grid-connected floating offshore wind turbine in the U.S.
