Dominion Energy announced the beginning of construction on the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project which is the second US farm in the U.S. Deepwater Wind, now a subsidiary of Ørsted, completed the first U.S. offshore wind farm near Rhode Island in 2016.
The project was firstly announced two years ago and is the only fully-permitted offshore wind project in the US federal waters.
The company is breaking ground to place a half-mile conduit, which will hold the final stretch of cables connecting the turbines 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach to a company substation near Camp Pendleton. This will facilitate interconnection of the two 6MW wind turbines which will power 3,000 homes at peak.
Moreover, after the completion of the project in 2020, the company notes that the turbines won’t be noticeable from shore.
Dominion Energy anticipates $1.1 billion in offshore wind investments through 2023.
In addition, to protect the area and minimize the environmental impacts to the sea bottom and aquatic life observers will be present during the construction of the project to look for protected species; In the possibility that protected species are located in the area, the work will stop.
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Also, Ørsted has been contracted for the offshore portion of the project.
Ørsted is active elsewhere, as the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities chose Ocean Wind – an offshore wind energy project proposed by Ørsted – to negotiate a 20-year offshore wind farm with a capacity of 1.1GW.
In light of this selection, Ørsted has secured a US offshore wind build-out portfolio with a total capacity of approx. 2GW to be completed between 2022 to 2024. Ørsted will be able to optimize construction and operations across the portfolio as well as inside the clusters:
Mid-Atlantic cluster: Ocean Wind (1,100MW) will deliver power to New Jersey. Expected commissioning by 2024. Skipjack (120MW) will deliver power to Maryland. Expected commissioning by 2022.
North-East cluster (owned 50-50 with Eversource): Revolution Wind (704MW) will deliver power to Rhode Island (400MW) and Connecticut (304MW). Expected commissioning by 2023. South Fork (130MW) will deliver power to Long Island, New York. Expected commissioning by 2022.
