by Steve Haner

Dominion Energy Virginia’s current offshore wind construction project is one of only four still in the process of building towers and turbines in the wake of an executive order from President Donald Trump.  It is also the largest of the survivors, with more planned power output than the other three combined.

Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) will include 176 turbines and several offshore substations, with a nameplate value of 2,600 megawatts. The other projects still underway at this time are Vineyard Wind 1 off Massachusetts (806 MW), Revolution Wind serving Rhode Island and Connecticut (704 MW) and Sunrise Wind, a New York project with 924 MW.

Vineyard Wind’s construction was interrupted last summer by a defective 351-foot turbine blade that shattered and scattered debris far and wide. Now it is dealing with the revelation that more than 60 additional blades from supplier GE Vernova have a similar flaw and will need to be replaced. 

Dominion continues to report a smooth construction process but has announced a cost overrun of $900 million in recent days. Perhaps the thing to note is that Dominion’s project is the only survivor under construction that has among its backers a sitting Republican governor. The other three are in deep blue states. It is also the only one to be owned directly by the utility (now with a non-controlling partner) and thus guaranteed by its captive ratepayers.

Dominion’s announcement that the total price has reached $10.7 billion (not including financing costs and profit margins, of course) was accompanied by a long slide presentation on the project’s status, not a bad PR move given the hostility in Washington. The photos are indeed cool.

Despite the long hard push by the offshore wind industry to become a major energy supplier for the United States, only three projects with a combined 19 working turbines are completed and operational. Two of those turbines are the pair installed by Dominion as a demonstration project. Block Island off Rhode Island has another five and Southfork Wind off New York another 12.

An unofficial count shared with Bacon’s Rebellion indicates as many as 22 pending East Coast wind projects – thousands of turbines in various stages of review and approval – are now frozen pending a federal review dictated by the executive order. The frozen include the two other lease areas Dominion has made plans to develop, a second wave of CVOW turbines adjacent to Phase 1 and the Kitty Hawk North lease. 

There are another five projects that had received final approvals by the Biden Administration, but which are not yet under construction. In some of those cases the developer has backed out already. They are not listed as frozen or dead on the list but certainly are in jeopardy.

Two of those approved but not under construction are off Maryland. The state just signed an agreement with the private developer U.S. Wind. Maryland will purchase its renewable energy certificates at prices starting at $130 per megawatt hour (MWh) and rising over time, a massive subsidy provided by electricity ratepayers for the power. The REC payments will be in addition to whatever the developer receives for the energy sold.

In that recent presentation to shareholders, Dominion mentioned assumed REC values of $29 per MWh for CVOW, so on its face the Maryland subsidy seems to be quite a premium. Maryland also agreed to allow much larger turbines in the lease area and to allow them closer to shore, additional concessions to keep the developer at the table. But not being underway, its status is unclear now.

To summarize, of 37 projects to have applications before the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management going back for several years, three miniscule plants are now working and only four are in the construction phase, one of those struggling. Anybody who is confident the current Dominion project is safe from federal interference is not paying attention. Just what cancellation might cost ratepayers is still a question needing a clearer answer.