Offshore wind components headed from Europe

Dominion Energy to begin construction on offshore wind turbines this spring

Published April 21, 2020 by Sydney Lake

Dominion Energy plans to develop the nation's largest wind farm — an $8 billion, 220-turbine project — off the coast of Virginia Beach by 2026. Photo courtesy Dominion Energy

Richmond-based Dominion Energy Inc. and Denmark-based Ørsted A/S announced Tuesday that major components of its $300 million Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) pilot project are being shipped to North America — which is on-schedule, despite the pandemic.

Major components for the two, massive 6-megawatt Siemens Gamesa offshore wind turbines from Denmark and Germany are en route via cargo ship to Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The turbines will be 600 feet tall when measured from the ocean’s surface to the tip of the top blade — or taller than the Washington Monument — and will be able to power 3,000 homes at peak production, according to Dominion.

Construction is expected to begin later this spring and the turbines are scheduled to be in operation by the end of the year.

Dominion selected the Spanish renewable energy engineering company in January as the preferred turbine supplier for its offshore wind farm 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach. Construction for the pilot project began in June 2019, when Dominion broke ground on an onshore power substation for the turbines near Camp Pendleton.

“This is a monumental step toward the installation of the first offshore wind turbines in federal waters, which will deliver clean, renewable energy to our customers,” Mark D. Mitchell, Dominion vice president of generation construction, said in a statement.

The pilot project is the first phase in Dominion’s plan, announced in September 2019, to build a $7.8 billion, 220-turbine wind farm off the Virginia Beach coastline by 2026. The wind farm, which would be the largest in the U.S., is part of Dominion’s goal of achieving net-zero carbon dioxide and methane emissions from its electricity generation and gas infrastructure operations by 2050. The entire project would produce enough zero-carbon electricity to power 650,000 Virginia homes.

Dominion this month is also conducting ocean surveys to map the seabed of the 112,800-acre lease area to determine impacts to ocean and sea life and develop the project’s Construction and Operations Plan to be submitted to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM).