By Teun van den Dries / Shutterstock
Virginia-based electric utility provider Dominion Energy is proposing the United States’ largest offshore wind development off Virginia’s coast.
The proposal is for a 2,600-megawatt commercial offshore wind development that will ramp up to include 220 wind turbines providing renewable energy for up to 650,000 homes by the year 2026.
If approved, the project would be located approximtely 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach on 112,800 acres that Dominion Energy has leased the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
Dominion has now filed an application with PJM, the regional transmission organization that coordinates the electrical grid in all or parts of 13 states and the District of Columbia, to interconnect the proposed turbines to the transmission grid.
Following the key filing, ocean survey work is expected to begin in 2020 and a Construction and Operations Plan will be submitted in 2022.
“Offshore wind is an excellent renewable energy source and this filing with PJM shows how serious we are about bringing commercial-scale offshore wind to Virginia, giving our customers what they have asked for – more renewable energy,” said Mark D. Mitchell, vice president of generation construction. “Governor Ralph Northam has made it clear Virginia is committed to leading the way in offshore wind. We are rising to this challenge with this 2,600-megawatt commercial offshore wind development.”
Like Dominion’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project, which is planned for start-up in 2020, Dominion plans to move forward with the proposed project in three phases, each totaling 880 megawatts. The first phase of the buildout will support initial generation of wind energy by 2024, with additional phases will come online in 2025 and 2026, totaling more than 2,600 megawatts of energy, enough to power 650,000 homes during peak wind.
The company began construction in June on the 12MW CVOW project, which is the first fully permitted wind project in U.S. federal waters.
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