After years of work and a boost in the form of a federal grant late last year, the University of Maine’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center connected its first prototype offshore wind turbine to the electrical grid last week.

The VolturnUS turbine is a 65-foot-tall, floating prototype that became the first grid-connected offshore wind turbine in North America last Thursday.

The fact that this cutting-edge technology is being created not only in Maine, but at one of the state’s public universities is a feat in and of itself. The progress this project has made since being announced five years ago is astounding.

The people of Maine have a lot to be proud of in its universities, and the Advanced Structures and Composites Center is certainly a shining example.

The VolturnUS turbine was designed and built at UMaine and assembled at Cianbro’s facility in Brewer. Last week, after being towed nearly 30 miles from Brewer to Castine by Maine Maritime Academy, it was anchored off the coast of Castine, in 80 feet of water and turned on. Electricity flowed through an undersea cable to the Central Maine Power electricity grid, making VolturnUS the first grid-connected offshore wind turbine on the continent, according to the center.

Although the issue of wind turbines on land has become contentious recently, offshore wind may be the way of the future, since the “farms” won’t be in anyone’s backyard, and it’s exciting to see that Maine is leading the way for this clean, renewable energy source.

In 2009, then-Maine Gov. John Baldacci announced that the state would produce 3,000 megawatts of wind energy by 2020. He, along with other state officials, pushed to develop offshore technology at the time, and the University of Maine’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center answered the call.

The University of Maine-led DeepCwind Consortium was created at the time, and since then, students and staff there have been working on the technology for more than five years. The DeepCwind Consortium is a public-private research partnership funded by the Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation Partners for Innovation program, Maine Technology Institute, the State of Maine, the university and more than 30 private-sector partners.

Going forward, the group plans to build two 6-megawatt VolturnUS floating turbines to be moored off Monhegan Island in 2016. Design for these turbines is currently under way, and funded in part though a DOE competition called the Advanced Technology Demonstration Program for Offshore Wind, according to the center. The $96 million pilot farm, called New England Aqua Ventus I, will help lead the state toward generating power for consumer use, and will allow the state to take advantage of the offshore wind capacity along the coast.

In addition to the energy potential, UMaine also boasted the project’s economic benefits.

The university said the consortium’s plan to deploy 5 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030 could attract up to $20 billion of private investment to the state ”“ creating thousands of jobs.

It’s clear that Maine is leading the way in offshore wind, and we hope the university and its partners continue to garner support and funding for their projects as this technology and industry develops and grows.