Data centers in Washington County, Maine: 1 project mapped

Imagery: Esri, Maxar

Washington County's data center proposal is underwater. DeepGreen Western Passage SPV, a Delaware company formed in January 2026, applied in February to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for a 48-month preliminary permit to study a tidal-powered AI data center on the seabed of the Western Passage off Kendall Head, north of Eastport in the Bay of Fundy. The design would place docking cradles on the ocean floor for tidal turbines and pods of computing hardware. Its managing member, Louis Wolfson, has a background in Massachusetts luxury real estate; he told Monitor Local he has "too much respect for working waterfronts to introduce a project that threatens them." DeepGreen filed a parallel application for Cook Inlet in Alaska.

Opposition was quick and broad. On April 9 the Washington County Commission wrote to Wolfson that it did not support the application: "Washington County has a long, involved history, dependency and respect for maritime industry, and we feel this type of project would be too risky for this region and its waters." Passamaquoddy officials also strongly oppose it. Eastport's council sent its own letter of objection in May, and in August voted unanimously for a 180-day moratorium on data centers while citizen petitions from the Eastport Coalition for Healthy Oceans move forward; the city's attorneys found one, a permanent ban on large data centers, legally sound. Aquaculture worker Nathan Curtis warned FERC the project would turn the passage into "an unmetered industrial heat sink." The Port Authority's director, Chris Gardner, said the board has "no confidence in this developer", and the tidal company ORPC, named in the application, said it has no affiliation with DeepGreen.

In August FERC accepted a revised application after first finding it deficient. DeepGreen shrank the plan from 51 megawatts to a maximum of 15 MW in phases, for a $100 million, 27-acre facility. The preliminary permit covers studies only, not construction; FERC set October 19 as the deadline for comments, motions to intervene and competing applications. ORPC's chief executive, Stuart Davies, said the company had "no discussions with DeepGreen" and that ORPC's own proposed Eastport microgrid, which DeepGreen's application describes drawing power from, was shelved after it failed to win grant funding. Statewide, Governor Janet Mills vetoed a Legislature-passed moratorium on data centers over 20 MW in April because it lacked an exemption for a project in Jay, and set up a council to report on data center policy by January 29, 2027. Since the veto, Lewiston and Scarborough have adopted temporary moratoriums.

Every project above is drawn from public records, filings and local reporting. Each row links to what it is based on. Statuses change, so check the source date before you rely on one. Found something wrong? Write to [email protected] and it gets fixed.