Broadband, renewable energy focuses for rural development, USDA administrator says
Rural communities can improve their economy and quality of life, Andrew Berke, administrator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service, stressed during the opening of the fifth annual Investing in Rural America conference, held Tuesday at the Hotel Roanoke & Conference Center. The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond hosts the two-day Investing in […]
Electrolyzer manufacturer to build $400M plant in Chesterfield
Updated May 1, 2024 Topsoe, a Danish electrolyzer manufacturer, is planning to build a $400 million manufacturing facility in Chesterfield County after receiving $136 million in federal tax credits to help fund construction, the company announced Friday. The plant is expected to create about 150 jobs, according to a news release Friday from the offices […]
Which way the Venn blows
It feels like one of those logic puzzles high school students grapple with on the SAT: If Delegate Sally passes a law to require utilities in her state to generate all their electricity from renewable, carbon-free energy sources like wind and solar by 2045, what is the latest year CEO Tom’s power plant can stop […]
Natural selection
Natural gas as a source of energy for Virginia power plants is set to reach its final days by the middle of the century — or is it? The Virginia General Assembly set that deadline in 2020 when it passed the Virginia Clean Economy Act, which requires the state’s two major electric utilities to shift […]
Dominion to sell 50% interest in offshore wind farm
Dominion Energy announced Feb. 22 it had reached an agreement with investment firm Stonepeak to sell a 50% noncontrolling stake in the utility‘s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project for nearly $3 billion. The deal is expected to close by the end of 2024, if approved by the Virginia State Corporation Commission and the North Carolina […]
Clarke County limits solar development
Clarke County prioritizes agriculture. That’s what drives most of its policy-making as the county navigates the complexities of renewable energy development while preserving its farmland, explains County Administrator Chris Boies. In January, the county’s Board of Supervisors approved new regulations for utility-scale solar projects. Boies says the ordinance has always required solar p[...]
Dominion offshore wind farm earns final federal approvals
Richmond-based Dominion Energy has earned the final two federal approvals needed to move forward with the construction and operation of its $9.8 billion, 176-turbine offshore wind farm 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management granted final approval of the construction plan for the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) […]
SWVA clean energy development could draw $8.5B in investments
Wise County and neighboring localities in Southwest Virginia may become home to a massive clean energy development that could attract up to $8.25 billion in capital investments, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced Wednesday. An agreement between Energy DELTA Lab, Dallas-based Fortune 100 energy company Energy Transfer and Wise County will involve the development of 65,000 acres […]
Dominion offshore wind farm moves closer to final approval
Dominion Energy has passed another critical federal hurdle on its way to gaining approval to begin construction on its $9.8 billion, 176-turbine offshore wind farm 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management granted a favorable record of decision for the Richmond-based Fortune 500 electric utility‘s 2.6-gigawatt Coastal Virginia […]
Rocky Forge project faces stiff headwinds
Eight years after it was first proposed, Virginia‘s first onshore wind farm remains grounded behind regulatory, legal and political obstacles. Charlottesville-based Apex Clean Energy first announced plans for its Rocky Forge wind farm in 2015. Apex aimed to have blades spinning by 2017 on 25, 550-foot-tall wind turbines on North Mountain, in a remote section […]
Dominion pitches state on $70M battery storage pilot
Dominion Energy Virginia is asking the state to allow it to test two technologies that it says could lengthen the time its batteries can electrify the grid from an average of four hours to longer than four days. In a 117-page filing made Monday with the State Corporation Commission, Dominion said its Darbytown Storage Pilot […]
On cloud nine
In 2007 — the same year that Apple unveiled the iPhone and Netflix introduced the idea of “streaming” movies — Buddy Rizer started aggressively targeting an industry that many of the people he worked for in Loudoun County didn’t yet fully comprehend. “It was not an easy story to tell at first,” Rizer recalls of […]