Electric boats splash down in rural Maine’s coastal waters

The prospects for funding future projects are now much murkier under the Trump administration, maritime policy experts say.

The DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, which awarded the money to Maine Ocean Farms and its partners, is facing significant budget cuts in the next fiscal year. The GOP-backed spending law that passed in July rescinded some unobligated grant funding for cleaning up marine diesel engines. While other programs were spared, it’s unclear whether the current Congress will approve new funding for initiatives ranging from electrifying huge urban ports to deploying low-emissions ferries in rural communities.

But federal grants aren’t the only way to address the higher cost of electric boats. Strater and Planson also worked with Coastal Enterprises Inc., a Maine-based community development financial institution focused on climate resilience, to establish a ​“marine green” loan program that can make the up-front costs of switching to electric propulsion more accessible to small businesses.

“The more electric engines that are being employed in Maine helps lift the whole tide for everyone,” said Nick Branchina, director of CEI’s fisheries and aquaculture program. As part of its marine green lending, CEI offers loans starting at $25,000 for small businesses to make the switch to electric propulsion and comfortably afford the cost of batteries or a shoreside charging installation.

Planson said that as electrification moves beyond initial grant-funded projects, the challenge is keeping systems affordable. He said he wants to see other small business owners able to ​“take a reasonable swing” at electric propulsion. 

Buying a boat, of course, is only the first obstacle. Electric vessel owners must also learn how to use their new propulsion systems and find a place to charge them.

This summer, Leathers said he’s had no trouble making the nearly two-mile round trip from the slip where he docks Heron in South Freeport, Maine, to his farm on Casco Bay. With a full charge, he can make trips slightly farther to meet distributors closer to Portland. But as temperatures drop this winter, Leathers said he’s not sure how far the outboards’ two batteries will take him. Cold weather can reduce battery capacity and impact performance, shrinking an electric motor’s range. It’s a part of Leathers’ demonstration to find out what the impacts are in practice. 

Like Leathers, Strater and Planson also work year-round. They said they’re both impressed with how their boat performed last winter after launching in the fall of 2024. For Planson, who markets battery-powered equipment to aquaculture farmers as part of his startup, Shred Electric, a boat’s ability to run through the year’s coldest months is a key selling point.

“The proof is in the pudding,” said Planson. ​“When you’re working with … waterfront applications, it really needs to work every day and all year.”

Strater and Planson said their boat’s range was an important consideration when they partnered with the startup Flux Marine to build the electric outboard motor. With limited shoreside charging infrastructure in place, the boat has to make it out and back on a single charge, sometimes to aquaculture operations seven miles away. In the 10 months since the boat’s launch, Strater has learned range correlates to speed. He can modulate the boat’s pace depending on how far he wants to go.

“We can go really fast for a short distance. We can go really slow for a long distance, and it works for what we do with it,” he said.

Soon, Maine’s early adopters will have shared access to a higher-capacity Level 2 charger that will be installed at the Sea Meadow Marine Foundation and can charge batteries in little over two hours, or three times faster than the current system. The startup Aqua superPower was awarded a portion of the DOE funding last year to install additional marine chargers there and at a wharf in Portland owned by the Gulf of Maine Research Institute. Island Institute also helped with grant funding for the charger at the Sea Meadow boatyard. 

Maine will need much more high-capacity charging infrastructure for the marine industry to transition to electric propulsion, said the Island Institute’s Morris. As the state’s aquaculture and fisheries industries look to grow beyond small-scale operations, other businesses will need to charge more frequently to make longer, farther trips up and down the coast.

Expanding charging stations north of Casco Bay represents what Morris calls a ​“chicken and egg” problem: a dynamic where chargers are either installed before demand gets high, and sit unused, or electric boats hit the water and there’s not enough charging infrastructure, stalling future adoption.

This challenge is compounded by both New England’s aging grid infrastructure and the remote nature of some of the region’s waterfront access points. Getting the right amount of power to a charging station on the shore can be costly, even in Yarmouth, which sits on Casco Bay. Often it’s the last mile that can be the most expensive. At Sea Meadow Marine Foundation, three-phase power, which can accommodate higher loads, is limited by the dirt road that separates the boat launch from the more heavily trafficked U.S. Route 1.

“There are a lot of complicated questions,” Morris said. ​“I don’t think it’s unique to Maine, it’s any rural area, but complicated questions and conversations with the utilities and the rural municipalities are going to have to be solved for.”

Back on the water, Leathers docked his electric boat, Heron, alongside the sea farm’s barge, where thousands of oysters pass through for processing on harvest days. He switched the motor off and hopped onto the floating platform. For a moment, the bay was calm to the point of near silence. Then Leathers picked up an oyster cage with a rattle, turning it over in his hands as water splashed out. The sounds of the workday began.

“As a whole industry, I think it’s going to take proving that someone like us can do it,” Leathers said. ​“And then the next person kind of snowballing after that.”