June 25, 2024 — On a recent summer day, under blue skies, a 272-feet tall, 31-feet wide, 1,500-ton steel cylinder was being pushed into the ocean floor 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach.
The process will be repeated for months as Dominion Energy builds the country’s largest offshore wind project.
“It’s really cool,” said John Larson, director of public policy and economic development for Dominion, who was watching the action from a boat about 1,600 feet away. “In your career, you don’t get to work on a lot of 10-year projects and actually see it happen.”
Larson and others involved in the $9.8 billion Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project were showcasing the project’s construction and economic benefits while trying to allay environmental concerns during a tour of the work with area reporters.
The State Corporation Commission, Virginia’s utility regulators, approved the project seen as critical in the transition to renewable energy in the summer of 2022 as part of the Virginia Clean Economy Act, which requires the state’s two largest electricity utilities to decarbonize the grid by 2050.