Virginia utility agrees to install two offshore wind turbines for study – Ars Technica

Enlarge / An image of an offshore wind turbine, from Dong Energy.

Dong Energy

This week, Virginia utility Dominion announced that it would partner with Danish firm Dong Energy to build two offshore wind turbines as test cases for a commercial-sized installation.

Currently, the US only has one 30MW commercial offshore wind farm off Block Island in Rhode Island. Renewable energy proponentshave sought to expand offshore winds reach for years in the hope it wouldre-create the low-cost energy boom that has occurred in the US with onshore wind. The offshore resource has a lot of promiseturbines can be built bigger out at sea, so they can generate more power, and wind is generally less variable.

But building offshore wind infrastructure is still expensive; its new territory for US contractors. Few utilities have experience managing offshore wind energy. Partnering with Dong Energy will bring some expertise across the pondthe company has constructed many large offshore wind installations in Europe, and it even submitted a subsidy-free bid to German energy regulators for a new installation to go up in 2020.

This new project, called the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Project, will consist of just two 6MW test turbines, 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach, where they cant be seen from the shore. The turbines will be built next to a 112,800-acre site leased by Dominion Energy from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM). The site is large enough that it could be used to build out a 2,000MW offshore wind installation someday.

But thats far in the future. In a phone conversation with Ars, Dominions communications director, David Botkins, said a lot has to happen before the utility would commit to building that much offshore wind. These first two test turbines, which wont be completed until 2020, will only generate 12MW together and will send electricity back to shore via a 34 kilovolt distribution line. Its never been done before in the mid-Atlantic United States. First weve gotta get these two turbines constructed,"Botkins said. "Then we have to take the time to see how they perform under a regimen that includes exposing them to potential hurricane-force wind and studying marine and aquatic life impact, water currents, et cetera, et cetera.

The project is not without its controversy. In 2016, Dominion reportedly let a $40 million Department of Energy (DOE) grant offer lapse, which made Governor Terry McAuliffe unhappy, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Botkins told Ars that the lapse was a purely economic decision. We had to go out for bid on two separate occasions because on the first round of bids the price came in way too high to justify moving forward. The second round was a little bit better but not much, he said. He added that he thought at that point, the DOE decided to move forward with funding Block Island.

As a result, the two test turbines, which will be 600ft tall with a 500ft rotor diameter, arent receiving any federal funding. The project is supposed to cost $300 million and will be wholly owned by the utility, which will seek to recoup the costs through rate increases. Botkins told Ars that no rate recovery proposals have been made yet.

Other Atlantic states have moved forward with offshore wind projects in recent months. New York entered a deal with Deepwater Wind, the company that built the Block Island installation, in January. That project will consist of a 90MW wind farm 30 miles southeast of Montauk, and it's set to be completed by the end of 2022 if all goes well. Massachusetts has also called for 1,600MW of offshore wind by 2027.