Home - Harnessing Nature – Fall 2009 The Gulf of Maine has been
characterized as the Saudi Arabia of wind. To Habib Dagher, it
is a wellspring of one of the Northeast’s greatest renewable
energy resources. Dagher, director of UMaine’s AEWC Advanced
Structures & Composites Center, is collaborating with companies
on the design, manufacture and testing of floating wind turbine
technology off the Maine coast in waters 60–900 meters deep. The
turbines would feature 300-foot towers with 200-foot blades
prototyped, manufactured and tested by AEWC researchers. In
early 2010, AEWC is expected to open an advanced wind blade
prototyping facility, where full-scale trial blades can be
designed, fabricated and tested under one roof. Funding for the
facility came from the Maine Technology Institute, which last
fall awarded nearly $5 million to two AEWC initiatives focused
on the renewable energy and transportation industries. The
allocations were made possible by a $50 million Maine Technology
Asset Fund (MTAF) R&D bond Mai