One of the state’s largest energy storage facilities is on track to open in Chesterfield County this year, as Dominion Energy Inc. works to achieve state-mandated clean energy goals.
The Dry Bridge Energy Storage project will feature row after row of installations that resemble shipping containers, each housing batteries that collectively have the capacity to store 20 megawatts of energy.
It’s part of Dominion’s effort to meet the state’s requirement that the utility generate all its electricity for use in the commonwealth from clean energy sources by 2045.
The Virginia State Corporation Commission is reviewing Dominion’s application for a certificate of public convenience and necessity, while the utility hopes to complete permitting requirements with Chesterfield County officials early this year, according to Dominion spokesman Jeremy L. Slayton.
As the energy giant transitions away from fossil fuels and toward greater reliance on solar and offshore wind energy production, storing excess energy will be a necessity. “Storage is key because the wind isn’t always blowing [and] the sun isn’t always shining,” Slayton says.
While Dry Bridge will be its biggest energy storage facility so far, the 20 megawatts will barely put a dent in the state-mandated 2,700 megawatts of storage Dominion must achieve by 2035. In addition to Dry
Bridge, a planned Loudoun County facility will offer 50 megawatts of storage, and various smaller pilot projects will total 16 megawatts.
That leaves 2,614 megawatts of battery storage to go. Meeting that goal would require a massive increase in storage technology, leaving many to wonder if lawmakers set an unattainable goal.
During a September 2021 gubernatorial debate, Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin said he wouldn’t have signed the 2020 Virginia Clean Economy Act, adding that energy executives didn’t think it was feasible.
Mike Doyle, a senior equity analyst at Edward Jones specializing in utilities, says utility-scale battery storage is relatively new technology. Advocates for expanding the state’s capacity are banking on the batteries becoming more efficient during the next decade. And, he says, “that’s typically what we see with technology, whether personal computers or things on the utility side.”
Still, Doyle says, Dominion must balance expanding battery storage capacity with the cost passed on to customers.
“If the costs don’t come down or technology doesn’t improve as much and it starts impacting customers’ rates more than it is comfortable for regulators in Virginia, you could see it slowed down,” Doyle says.
On April 17, 2020, with a flourish of the pen, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam reshaped the future of energy production in the commonwealth.
Signing the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) into law last year, Northam declared that Virginia would become a leader in fighting climate change, and, indeed, no other Southern state has passed legislation as comprehensive. Sen. Jennifer McClellan, D-Richmond, the act’s co-patron, seconded the governor’s optimism. She adds that the VCEA will not only provide Virginia with clean energy but boost its economy, already projected to grow 8% in 2021, due in part to green energy jobs.
The VCEA requires stringent energy-efficiency standards that are projected to generate as much as $3,500 in savings for the average Virginia household over the next 30 years, according to a study by Advanced Energy Economy, an industry trade association. The act’s headline-grabber, though, is its mandate that all electricity consumed in the commonwealth must have zero carbon emissions and be generated from renewable energy sources by 2050.
It’s an ambitious goal, and the onus for achieving it falls largely on its two biggest electricity suppliers, Richmond-based Dominion Energy Inc., with about 2.5 million in-state customers, and Ohio-based Appalachian Power, which services about 524,000 customers in Southwest Virginia, the Roanoke and New River valleys and the Lynchburg area. The two utilities are working purposefully to comply with the act, which gives Dominion until 2045 and Appalachian until 2050 to comply, with a provision allowing extensions if the utilities can’t provide reliable service from carbon-free sources by that point.
“You can either view this legislation as presenting a significant challenge or a great opportunity. We see it as the latter,” says Ed Baine, president of Dominion Energy Virginia. “We are making great progress toward Virginia’s clean energy future and delivering significant benefits to our customers.”
Where things stand
The efforts to move Virginia to carbon-free energy production are happening as the impacts of climate change are becoming more apparent across the globe. The Pacific Northwest and Northern Europe saw record heat waves this summer, while several European nations experienced catastrophic flooding.
In August, the United Nations issued a report stating humans “unequivocally” caused climate change, warning that global warming is nearing a tipping point. Atmospheric carbon dioxide is at its greatest concentration in at least 2 million years, temperatures are at a 6,500-year high and sea levels are rising at the fastest rate in 3,000 years, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres called it a “code red for humanity,” adding, “The alarm bells are deafening. This report must sound a death knell for coal and fossil fuels, before they destroy our planet.”
Last year, under the Northam administration, Virginia passed the VCEA and became the first Southern state to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a coalition of mid-Atlantic and Northeastern states working to combat climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector.
Close to 60% of the energy generated by Dominion in the commonwealth has been coming from sources that are neither carbon zero nor renewable, primarily natural gas and some coal. The Fortune 500 utility plans to close its coal-burning Chesterfield Power Station by May 2023, and it’s projected to close the coal-burning Clover Power Station in Halifax County in 2026. Dominion wants to keep its Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center — which burns coal, waste coal and biomass — operational until 2045.
Will Cleveland, a senior lawyer with the Southern Environmental Law Center, opposes that plan. He calls the center “a net loser” that should be shuttered much sooner. The energy center may be profitable to Dominion, he says, but the power company’s customers pay for it through site-specific surcharges on their electric bills known as rate adjustment clauses.
Most of the rest of Dominion’s energy supply in Virginia — about 40% — is generated from its four nuclear plants in North Anna and Surry. Nuclear energy is carbon zero, so it can remain in play under the VCEA. The Surry facilities are federally licensed to be operational until the early 2050s, and Dominion is seeking an extension to run the North Anna facilities until 2060. Despite having an option to build a third nuclear plant at North Anna, the utility has no current plans to do so, says Dominion’s manager of media relations, Rayhan Daudani.
Appalachian’s reliance on fossil fuels is heavier than Dominion’s. About 45% of its generating capacity comes from coal and another 28% from natural gas, with nuclear energy making up just 7% of its portfolio. (The remaining 20% comes from a mix of sources, including wind, hydroelectricity and pumped storage hydropower.)
Appalachian has no coal-burning plants in Virginia, but it does operate two in West Virginia: the 2,930-megawatt John Amos plant and the 1,330-megawatt Mountaineer plant. About half the power from these plants flows to Virginia customers. Under the VCEA, that eventually will have to stop unless Appalachian employs renewable energy certificates to offset that consumption. Against the objections of environmental groups such as the Sierra Club, Appalachian is seeking to keep these coal-burning plants operating until 2040.
The Sierra Club says that keeping the plants open is not cost-effective for customers, but Appalachian President and Chief Operating Officer Chris Beam has a different take. “If forced to make big changes up front, that would drive [consumer] prices up,” he says.
Nevertheless, to conform to federal regulations regarding wastewater systems and ash removal, the plants require $250 million in upgrades, and Appalachian is asking the State Corporation Commission to approve a $2.50 monthly rate increase to pay for the improvements. If approved, the rate increase would take effect in October.
Both companies as well as the commonwealth have their work cut out to comply with the VCEA and all will, by necessity, be making historic investments in wind power, solar power and energy storage.
Dominion has erected two pilot wind turbines as part of its plan to build the nation’s largest offshore wind farm 27 miles off the Virginia Beach coast. Photo by Mark Rhodes
Where the wind blows
Making wind power into a dominant source of energy for Virginia won’t be a breeze. Already, opposition has put the brakes on building the state’s first proposed land-based wind farm.
The planned 14-turbine Rocky Forge Wind project in the mountains of Botetourt County is opposed by the Virginians for Responsible Energy, a citizens’ group that contends that the project would degrade the landscape and pose a fire hazard. A lawyer for the group recently pointed out to the county that Rocky Forge developer Apex Clean Energy had missed a deadline for a site approval plan. After some back and forth, the county then rejected Apex’s request for an extension, leaving the project becalmed.
The Sierra Club, however, “fiercely supports” Rocky Forge. Dan Crawford, chair of the club’s Roanoke group and of its Virginia onshore wind promotion, says, “If push comes to shove, and it goes to court, I’m confident the wind farm will happen.”
Rocky Forge is also part of the state government’s plan to meet its goal of obtaining at least 30% of the electricity required for state agencies from renewable sources by 2022.
Meanwhile, Dominion is entering the offshore wind business in a mammoth way with its Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, a $7.8 billion, 2.6-gigawatt wind farm to be built about 27 miles offshore from Virginia Beach. Baine says it is the largest project in Dominion’s history. It also will be the country’s largest and first utility-owned wind farm, featuring about 180 wind turbines, each rising more than 800 feet above the ocean surface. Once in operation, it’s estimated that the wind farm will generate $11 million annually in state and local tax revenues, according to a study by Glen Allen-based Mangum Economics commissioned by the Hampton Roads Alliance.
At this point, the project, sited in a federal lease area, is undergoing federal regulatory review and does not appear to have hit significant headwinds. The Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy (DMME) has been working with the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the Army Corps of Engineers to keep the project moving as part of the Biden administration’s goal to make all electricity generation in the country green by 2035. DMME director John Warren says that a timeline to establish a second federal lease area in Virginia waters for other offshore wind projects is already in development.
Construction on the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind farm is expected to begin in 2024. To facilitate that, Dominion is building the nation’s first U.S.-chartered wind-turbine-installation ship, the Charybdis, in Brownsville, Texas. The $500 million vessel will be able to install a wind turbine a day, with a 2026 target completion date.
Appalachian’s plans to tap into wind power are much more modest. Beam says that Appalachian will add about 200 megawatts of onshore wind power in the next five years, with an eventual goal of reaching 2,200 megawatts.
Dominion Energy’s Remington Solar facility in Fauquier County Photos courtesy Dominion Energy Inc.
Solar systems
Just six years ago, Dominion was generating only 1 megawatt of electricity from solar power — or enough to provide electricity to 250 households. Daudani blames that puny figure on solar not being cost-competitive. Since then, though, costs have come way down, and Dominion now has 5,249 megawatts of solar in operation or under development, including nine projects that the Virginia State Corporation Commission approved in May. At optimum output, these nine facilities will be capable of powering 125,000 homes.
Appalachian plans to add 210 megawatts of solar in the next five years, but Beam cautions that “the size of the projects can and may change.” His company’s end goal is to have 3,400 megawatts of solar by 2050.
Just like the wind farm in the Blue Ridge, however, land-use issues surrounding solar have begun to crop up. The VCEA specifies that all solar farms generating power for the commonwealth must be located in Virginia, and it is estimated that Virginia will need about 60 square miles of solar panels to meet its energy needs in 2050. Most of these solar farms will be in rural areas.
In June, in what could be a harbinger of battles to come, Frederick County supervisors rejected a proposal to build an 80-acre solar plant near Gore, citing concerns about preserving agriculture land and the area’s rural character. Hollow Road Solar LLC subsequently filed a $7.5 million lawsuit against the supervisors.
“Are there challenges related to land use?” says Dominion’s Baine. “Yes. There is a wide range of views on land use and property rights, [but] we are working with each and every locality to support their needs.”
Dominion Energy plans to replace all diesel-fueled Virginia school buses with electric buses by 2030. Photos courtesy Dominion Energy Inc.
The Southern Environmental Law Center is a supporter of solar energy, but Cleveland cautions that “the purpose is not to overbuild, but to keep the lights on.” He would like to see more effort going into locating solar facilities on marginal sites such as brownfields, landfills and abandoned parking lots instead of on agricultural land. But he agrees with DMME’s Warren about initiatives to locate solar farms on previously mined sites in far Southwest Virginia. Warren calls that “a win-win situation for everyone.”
In addition to the state eyeing old mining sites for solar farms, Warren says the state government also has purchased power agreements on six solar farms as part of its 2022 goal and is encouraging community colleges to implement solar systems to generate power for individual buildings.
Warren sounds a warning, though, about the eventual success of the VCEA. The infrastructure for all green power initiatives will require mineral extraction, he says, something that many environmentalists oppose. “Establishing a domestic raw material supply chain is not environmental treason,” he says. “We have to flip the script, or we are headed down a big collision course.”
Energy storage
Of the three main sources of green energy, storing energy produced by sources like solar and wind presents the biggest challenge. The VCEA stipulates that Dominion and Appalachian must have 2,700 megawatts and 400 megawatts of storage capacity respectively by 2035, but so far, costs remain high and storage technology is less than satisfactory.
“Batteries are still pretty expensive compared to alternatives,” says Beam with Appalachian. He expects prices will come down in the next five to 10 years, but, for now, his company has a couple of bidders on small storage projects.
Dominion is investing $33 million in four pilot storage projects for a combined 16 megawatts of energy storage capacity but, once tapped, that power will last just four hours. “We’d like to see that duration get longer,” says Baine. For now, he says, “It’s a slower ramp for deployment.” It’s also a long way from the 400-megawatt requirement.
Dominion has found one solution to that problem with its innovative electric school bus program. In a $15 million pilot project started last year, Dominion provided 50 electric school buses to local school systems across Virginia. Pending General Assembly approval, Dominion proposes to put 1,000 electric school buses on the road by 2025 and to completely replace diesel-powered school buses in Virginia by 2030. When not in use, these buses could be used like a fleet of mobile batteries to supply power back to the grid, or to act as mobile power stations during power outages or emergencies. Dominion has estimated that the program would cost each of its Virginia customer households about $12 a year.
Nevertheless, both utilities are moving toward the goal of a carbon-free future, with a certain measure of faith that clean energy and storage technologies will only get better the closer they get to 2045 and 2050.
“In an ideal world, we would be all carbon-free by 2035,” says McClellan, referring to the goal date the Biden administration has set for a carbon-free electricity industry. But 2035 was a no-go in the Virginia General Assembly, and McClellan says she’s comfortable with the 2050 goal and confident that the VCEA provides the framework to meet it.
Since the law’s passage, McClellan says, “We’ve already gone from the back of the pack to the top five or six states [in solar energy generation].”
But the state senator also is a believer in the Russian proverb that became a Ronald Reagan mantra: “Trust but verify.”
“We will be monitoring progress very closely,” McClellan says.
On April 30, the Virginia State Corporation Commission approved nine major solar farms, which have the potential to generate nearly 500 megawatts and power 125,000 homes for Virginia customers of Richmond-based Fortune 500 utility Dominion Energy Inc.
“This is another major step forward in building a clean energy economy in Virginia,” said Ed Baine, president of Dominion Energy Virginia. “Our customers deserve reliable and affordable energy, and they also deserve a clean environment. These projects will help us deliver on that promise.”
Six of the nine solar projects are being procured through power purchase agreements and Dominion Energy owns and will operate the remaining three projects:
Grassfield Solar, a 20-megawatt facility in Chesapeake
Norge Solar, a 20-megawatt facility in James City County
Sycamore Solar, a 42-megawatt facility in Pittsylvania County
Richard G. Johnstone Jr. handed over the reins of the Virginia, Maryland & Delaware Association of Electric Cooperatives this week, retiring after 36 years.
Johnstone served as president and CEO of the 76-year-old, Glen-Allen based organization, which represents 15 member-owned electric cooperatives. His replacement, Brian S. Mosier, was announced in January and took over April 1.
Johnstone, 65, also held the position of executive editor at the association’s magazine, Cooperative Living. As its longest-tenured member editor, serving from 1985 to 2005, Johnstone tripled the association publication’s circulation to 600,000. (By comparison, the state’s highest-circulation newspaper, the Sunday edition of The Washington Post, with 355,100 subscribers, according to the Virginia Press Association.)
Johnstone holds a degree in journalism and speech communications from the University of Richmond, where he served as editorial page editor of the student newspaper. He edited the Virginia Bar News for nearly seven years before joining Cooperative Living.
He’s led the association since 1999, and served as president of the National Rural Electric Statewide Editors Association and the National Rural Electric Statewide Managers Association.
In his retirement announcement, the trade association cited Johnstone’s work in growing the Gaff-n-Go Lineworker’s Rodeo into one of the country’s largest regional utility rodeos, creating a scholarship foundation that’s helped more than 800 young people, and opening a regional training facility in Fluvanna County in 2019, which provides continuing education to line workers, board members and other co-op professionals.
Appalachian Power Co. on Monday issued a request for proposals (RFPs) for up to 300 megawatts of solar and/or wind generation resources.
This is the first in a string of RFPs that the company will issue this year to comply with the Virginia Clean Economy Act, which requires that the company achieve 100% carbon-free energy generation in its Virginia service territory by 2050.
“This is Appalachian Power’s largest request yet in a single year for renewable energy bids,” Appalachian Power President and Chief Operating Officer Chris Beam said in a statement. “We look forward to reviewing the proposals and issuing more requests for bids later this year as we expand our portfolio and reliance on clean energy.”
Under the RFP, Appalachian Power may consider a single project or multiple facilities. Solar projects must be located in Virginia, while wind projects don’t have to be located in Virginia, but it is preferred.
Appalachian Power is seeking facilities of at least 50 megawatts that can be commercially operational by mid-December 2023. Proposals with an operational date by Dec. 15, 2024, will still be considered, however.
Proposals must be submitted by March 31.
Appalachian Power has more 1 million customers in Virginia, West Virginia and Tennessee. Last year, the company sought a rate increase from the State Corporation Commission, which was denied in November 2020. The company was seeking to increase rates by approximately $10 per month for a typical residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt hours of electricity.
The board of directors of the Glen Allen-based Virginia, Maryland & Delaware Association of Electric Cooperatives (VMDAEC) announced Monday that Brian S. Mosier has been named president and CEO, effective April 1.
He succeeds Richard G. Johnstone Jr., who is retiring after a 36-year career with the association. Mosier has been with VMDAEC since 2013 and has served as vice president of government affairs, vice president of member and government relations and chief operating officer.
“Brian is a proven leader who is well-known and well-regarded by our member systems, with a strong track record of success in all of the positions he’s held,” VMDAEC Board Chair Patricia S. “Pat” Dorey said in a statement.
Mosier has also previously worked with the Union Power Cooperative in North Carolina and the Mecklenburg Electric Cooperative in Chase City. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
VMDAEC provides safety and training, communications and legislative services to 15 electric cooperatives in Virginia, Maryland and Delaware.
Even while getting his teeth cleaned, Michael Keyser can’t escape the topic of broadband expansion.
“It’s the only thing they’ll talk about,” the CEO of BARC Electric Cooperative says, recounting a recent discussion with a dental hygienist excited about receiving broadband service.
BARC, a member-owned electric utility that serves the Shenandoah Valley, has taken the lead on expanding broadband access in the region. Sometimes compared to the federal government’s electrification of rural areas during the Great Depression, broadband expansion is vital to rural homes and businesses’ participation in the modern world.
Currently, much of the region can access only slow DSL or satellite broadband, which have and lower speed thresholds than fiber optic or cable broadband. And, with more people than usual working and attending school from home because of the pandemic, the need for broadband service has become only more pressing.
As Keyser explains, it doesn’t make financial sense for private companies to take on broadband expansion in the area, but as BARC needs to develop broadband access for its own meters and devices, it just made sense for the utility to extend service to the public.
“We realized … that if the co-op doesn’t step up and do this for our service territory, nobody’s going to,” Keyser says.
Since late 2017, the utility has expanded broadband access to about 8,000 homes and businesses at a cost of roughly $40 million. BARC is on pace to surpass 20,000 new customers during the next four years, reaching electric members in Rockbridge and Bath counties, as well as residents of Augusta, Highland, Alleghany and Botetourt counties. The bulk of the expansion has been paid by long-term federal loans, with about $6.2 million covered by grant funding. In late 2020, an additional $3.2 million in grants were announced in state and federal funds for project areas in Rockbridge County.
In light of the pandemic, BARC has attempted to further broadband expansion as quickly as possible, and Keyser says 2021 will be its busiest year yet, with plans to connect more than 2,000 additional customers with roughly 400 miles of fiber at a cost of $16 million.
“We don’t plan on slowing down,”says Rockbridge County Administrator Spencer Suter, whose government has applied for grants to expand broadband access in the county. “We’re going to continue to apply to … get broadband expanded to everybody.”
Keyser says those who have received broadband service “are ecstatic. The single question we get in the office is, ‘When is broadband coming?’”
Earlier this week, Richmond-based Dominion Energy Inc. and Evington-based bus dealer Sonny Merryman Inc. rolled out the first Jouley electric school buses as part of the Dominion Energy Electric School Bus Program.
“Once again, Virginia is leading the way in promoting electric vehicle technology and improving our environment,” Gov. Ralph Northam said in a statement. “This innovative electric school bus program is one of many steps we are taking to make electric vehicles accessible to all Virginians, and we look forward to working with Dominion as they bring electric school buses to communities in all corners of our commonwealth.”
Through the first stage of the program, 50 electric school buses will be delivered to Virginia localities at the same price of traditional diesel buses, with Dominion Energy offset the additional cost for the buses and associated charging infrastructure. The first school systems to receive the buses will be Charles City, Chesterfield, Fairfax, Loudoun, Louisa, Middlesex, Pittsylvania and Prince William counties, as well as Alexandria, Chesapeake, Hampton, Virginia Beach and Waynesboro.
“Jouley is the most exciting development in the North American pupil transportation industry since yellow paint,” Floyd Merryman, president and CEO of Sonny Merryman, said in a statement. “Our team is thrilled to partner with Dominion Energy to bring transformative electric buses to Virginia’s public schools.”
High Point, North Carolina-based bus manufacturer Thomas Built Buses and Proterra, a Burlingame, California-based electric bus designer and manufacturer, also partnered with Dominion and Sonny Merryman on the project. Built by Thomas Built Buses, the buses are powered with Proterra batteries. Sonny Merryman is an exclusive dealer of Thomas Built Buses.
“Virginia Beach City Public Schools is anxiously awaiting the arrival of the eight electric Thomas Built Buses with the Proterra powertrain,” David Pace, Virginia Beach City Public Schools executive director of transportation and fleet services, said in a statement. “We are looking forward to a continued relationship in the future to place more electric eco-friendly school buses into service. These buses will provide the children of Virginia Beach with a greener way to get to and from school.”
Aside from the environmental benefit of using electricity over diesel fuel, the electric buses can be used as portable batteries, and when not in use, can be tapped as an energy resource through vehicle-to-grid technology. Batteries can provide stability to the grid when energy demands are high. Batteries can also serve as mobile power stations in times of power outages or emergencies.
“From the environmental benefits of cleaner air, to the cost savings for school districts, to making our electric grid stronger through energy storage technology, this program is a win-win-win for the customers and communities we serve,” Dan Weekley, Dominion Energy vice president of innovation policy and development, said in a statement.
With state approval, Phase 2 of the program would deploy at least 1,000 additional electric school buses by 2025 — with the goal of Phase 3 to have 50% of all diesel bus replacements in Dominion Energy’s footprint to be electric by 2025 and 100% by 2030.
Richmond-based Dominion Energy Inc. announced Wednesday that its two turbine, 12-megawatt, $300 million Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) pilot project, located 27 miles off the Virginia Beach coastline, has successfully completed reliability testing.
Dominion, the first U.S. electric utility company to install an offshore wind farm, began construction on the $300 million project in June, and the turbines were installed and tested this summer. Ørsted served as the offshore engineering, procurement and construction lead, and the L.E. Myers Co. with members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, performed onshore construction work. The turbines are capable of providing enough electricity to power as many as 3,000 homes, according to Dominion.
The project is the first offshore wind farm approved by the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and installed in federal waters, and the second offshore wind farm constructed in the United States.
The CVOW pilot project is the first stage in Dominion’s plan to build the largest offshore wind farm in the nation, erecting 180 to 190 wind turbines off the coast of Virginia Beach by 2026. When complete, the $7.8 billion project will be capable of generating 2,600 megawatts of zero-carbon electricity, enough to power 650,000 homes during peak winds.
“This is a monumental day for the commonwealth and the burgeoning offshore wind industry in America, as CVOW is ready to deliver clean, renewable energy to our Virginia customers,” Joshua Bennett, Dominion Energy vice president of offshore wind, said in a statement. “Our team has worked diligently with key stakeholders and regulators while safely navigating through the coronavirus pandemic to complete this vitally important project that is a key step to reducing carbon emissions.”
BOEM is expected to complete a technical review of the project by the end of the year. The turbines will continue to operate during the review process.
Construction on Dominion’s proposed offshore wind farm expansion will create an estimated 900 jobs, according to an economic impact analysis conducted by Henrico County-based Mangum Economics and released by the Hampton Roads Alliance. And after manufacturing and construction are completed, it’s estimated that the continued operation of the project will create 1,100 direct and indirect jobs across the state. Jobs sectors would include engineering, wind technology, marine maintenance, logistics, construction, real estate, home improvement, hospitality and health care. The project is projected to generate more than $209 million in economic activity and nearly $6 million in local tax revenue for Hampton Roads.
Dominion customers will not see a rate increase for the pilot project under Grid Transformation and Security Act of 2018 provisions, according to the utility. Dominion has more than 7 million customers in 20 states and has a goal to achieve net zero carbon dioxide and methane emissions from its power generation and gas infrastructure operations by 2050.
The offshore wind industry could create up to 5,200 jobs in Virginia (with a majority in Hampton Roads) and an estimated $740 million in total economic activity during the next several years, according to an economic impact analysis conducted by Henrico County-based Mangum Economics and released Tuesday by the Hampton Roads Alliance.
Richmond-based Dominion Energy Inc. recently completed installation of the first two turbines in federal waters as part of its Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project. The next phase of the approximately $8 billion project is a large-scale, 2.6-gigawatt commercial operation, which will be enough to power approximately 660,000 homes.
“Offshore wind energy is an established industry in Europe, but in its infancy here in the United States,” Mangum Economics founder and CEO Fletcher Mangum said in a statement. “Our estimates are informed by the experience of the offshore wind industry in the United Kingdom, currently the country with the most installed offshore wind capacity in the world. Our confidence in the robustness of our modeling is bolstered by the fact that our estimates closely parallel the recent findings of other researchers on comparable offshore wind projects.”
During the next six years, construction on Dominion’s proposed offshore wind farm expansion will create an estimated 900 jobs. And after manufacturing and construction are completed, it’s estimated that the continued operation of the project will create 1,100 direct and indirect jobs across the state. Jobs sectors would include engineering, wind technology, marine maintenance, logistics, construction, real estate, home improvement, hospitality and health care. The project is projected to generate more than $209 million in economic activity and nearly $6 million in local tax revenue for Hampton Roads.
Dominion’s project is only part of the total development planned on the East Coast, with states from North Carolina to Massachusetts announcing plans to develop offshore wind along the coastline, which in turn has potential to spark development of East Coast manufacturing supply chain hubs, according to a statement from the Hampton Roads Alliance.
“Hampton Roads is uniquely positioned to support the growing $100 billion East Coast offshore wind industry,” according to the alliance. “The region boasts unmatched port infrastructure, America’s largest and most skilled maritime workforce, no overhead bridge restrictions between key port facilities and the open ocean, and abundant waterfront land.”
A $529,788 grant from the Department of Housing and Community Development and GO Virginia will allow for the recruitment of offshore wind companies to establish operations in the region and identify Virginia companies for the supply chain.
“The offshore wind industry brings with it unparalleled potential to further diversify the economy of Hampton Roads,” Douglas L. Smith, Alliance president and CEO, said in a statement. “The economic impact showcased in this report is the reason why the Alliance is committed to helping our region build a supply chain and prepare sites across the region to house companies that will participate in the manufacturing and operation of wind turbines. Our maritime workforce and unique geographic assets make us well positioned to secure this industry, but only if we come together as a region and commonwealth to present our compelling case to industry leaders.”
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