VolturnUS Comes Home

In the spring of 2013, the UMaine-designed and Cianbro-built VolturnUS experimental offshore wind turbine was launched into Penobscot Bay amid an outpouring of optimism from an audience that included Cianbro engineers and executives, UMaine scientists, and two United States Senators. The project’s mission: to see if the university’s unique turbine design could withstand the rigors of the elements in the Gulf of Maine. More than a year later, the turbine was brought back to shore after completing the experiment, ready to be inspected and studied by researchers who are determined to produce vast amounts of energy from offshore wind. UMaine’s lead design engineer talks about the lessons learned and Cianbro’s involvement in those discoveries.