A subsidiary of Mitsubishi has agreed with state officials to pause negotiations over a contract aimed at helping to develop offshore wind generation in the Gulf of Maine.
The state Public Utilities Commission last week issued an order suspending negotiations with Pine Tree Offshore Wind LLC. In the order, the PUC says the Mitsubishi subsidiary has requested a pause in the negotiations “due to recent shifts in the energy landscape that have in particular caused uncertainty in the offshore wind industry.”
That shift is likely the election of President Donald Trump, who has sharply criticized proposals to develop windpower projects. In January, hours after being sworn into office, Trump signed an executive order that halted new wind leases in federal waters and paused approvals, permits and loans for both onshore and offshore wind projects.
The Maine PUC order says that the negotiations were over “a proposed contract supporting the construction of an offshore wind research array in the Gulf of Maine,” and does not provide more specific information about what aspect of the project the negotiations were over.
A spokesperson for the PUC did not immediately return messages seeking comment and additional information about the negotiations being paused.
State regulators had been expected to decide this spring whether it was in the public interest for utilities to enter into a contract to buy power from a research wind farm in the Gulf of Maine, which was not expected to be built until at least 2030, the Maine Monitor reported in December.
In December, Chris Wissemann, a chief executive officer with Diamond Offshore Wind — an affiliate of Mitsubishi and Pine Tree Offshore Wind LLC that would have built the 12-panel research array — told the Monitor that it had invested $20 million into the project to date.
The research array is unrelated to a separate project by the University of Maine, which early this week launched a quarter-scale prototype of a floating wind turbine base off of Trenton that researchers hope will advance commercial-scale wind power development in the Gulf of Maine.
