Dominion Energy Virginia has announced a $900 million increase in the capital costs of its Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, bringing the new projected total to $10.7 billion. The additional expense will be incurred on transmission interconnections needed to allow the power to move within the PJM regional electricity market. 

The news came in a company press release Monday. The construction of the 176 turbines and related substations off Virginia Beach is still on budget, the company reported. The project is still set to be completed and operational in late 2026. From the release:

New electric generation resources constructed within PJM, like CVOW, are assigned costs by PJM that are deemed necessary to effectively integrate these resources and ensure the reliability and stability of the electric grid. Higher network upgrade cost estimates by PJM reflect the significant increase in demand growth that require incremental generation and transmission resources across the system. 

Because of an agreement made at the time of the State Corporation Commission approval of the application in late 2022, Dominion and its capital partner Stonepeak will absorb some of the additional cost and not charge it all to ratepayers. But ratepayers will see a slight increase in monthly bills at some point as a result of the additional PJM charges.

The project remains one of the few that seems to be surviving the turmoil in the wind industry caused by an executive order from President Donald Trump. Its final federal permits were issued under his predecessor and the project was well underway before the order. Dominion’s permits remain under attack for various claimed deficiencies, but there is no indication the federal government will pause the project. The potential cost impact of a cancellation on ratepayers was discussed earlier.

On the same day as the Dominion announcement about the cost increase, New Jersey officials cancelled an ongoing solicitation for a wind project there:

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) has canceled its fourth offshore wind solicitation amid significant market challenges and Shell’s withdrawal from the Atlantic Shores project…The solicitation, which initially targeted between 1,200 MW and 4,000 MW of capacity, faced setbacks when two of three bidders withdrew, leaving Atlantic Shores as the sole remaining participant.

— SDH