Dominion installs first CVOW turbine tower off Virginia Beach

Dominion Energy’s $11.2 billion Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project off Virginia Beach‘s coast reached a major milestone last week, with the installation of the project’s first turbine tower.

The roughly 380-foot tower was installed Wednesday, Dominion spokesperson Jeremy Slayton confirmed. He added that the nacelle, a cover that sits atop the turbine tower and houses the generating components, was also installed.

The tower was installed less than a week after the Richmond Fortune 500 utility won a preliminary injunction in federal court, allowing Dominion to resume construction on the CVOW project. In December 2025, the U.S. Department of the Interior issued stop-work orders on five East Coast offshore wind projects already underway, including CVOW. Dominion sued the Interior Department and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which said that they had paused the projects over concerns that they would interfere with military radar systems.

On Jan. 16, a federal judge ruled that Dominion could continue work on CVOW while the utility continues its legal challenge in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Dominion argued that the federal order was causing “serious, irreparable harm to [Dominion Energy Virginia] and its customers,” the lawsuit said. “All of CVOW’s offshore wind turbine and substation foundations are already in place, construction of other offshore and onshore components is ongoing or complete. There is a strict timeline for remaining CVOW construction activities, and any delay will affect the availability of specialized vessels, equipment and labor.”

The United States’ first offshore wind turbine installation vessel, the Charybdis, played a key role in installing the tower last week. The $715 million, U.S.-flagged ship’s hull measures 472 feet in length, 184 feet in width and 38 feet in depth, making it one of the largest vessels of its type worldwide. Its crane can lift up to 2,200 tons and can handle both current turbine technologies and next-generation sizes of 12 megawatts or larger.

Once operational, CVOW will consist of 176 wind turbines generating up to 9.5 million megawatt-hours per year, or enough energy to power up to 660,000 homes.

Slayton said the project is about 70% complete and will deliver first power to the grid during the first quarter of the year. The entire project is expected to be complete by the end of 2026, or possibly the addition of a few final turbines in 2027, the spokesman said Monday. At the end of January, Dominion will provide updates in a filing with the Virginia State Corporation Commission.