December 18, 2023 — Researchers with the Nature Conservancy and federal government are embarking on groundbreaking research off the coast of Virginia Beach to see how driving offshore wind turbines into the seafloor impacts fish behavior.
The research will provide guidance for how the government should craft environmental regulations for offshore wind development, which is increasing as the U.S. transitions from fossil fuel generation to renewable energy sources.
“The renewable energy sector is really critical to reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” said Kate Wilke, a marine scientist with the Nature Conservancy. “There really is a lot of scrutiny on this industry, and therefore we hope that that truly leads to better outcomes as the industry is developing and built out.”
While offshore wind has been slower to develop in the U.S. than in Europe or Asia, states along the East Coast have been racing to propose projects in recent years, especially after President Joe Biden announced a goal of having 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030. That’s enough to power roughly 10 million homes.
Virginia set its own goal of developing 5.2 gigawatts of offshore wind as part of the 2020 Virginia Clean Economy Act, which seeks to decarbonize the state’s electric grid by 2050. Dominion Energy, Virginia’s largest electric utility, is currently building a 2.6 gigawatt project that is expected to be the nation’s largest offshore wind farm when it’s complete.
The $9.8 billion Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, also known as CVOW, will construct 176 turbines about 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach. While other projects along the East Coast have stalled because of economic pressures, Dominion has said CVOW is “on-time and on-budget.”
As the utility prepares to begin the drilling needed for the turbines, the Nature Conservancy is taking the opportunity to see how all the earth-shaking activity will affect fish.
“We are going to tag animals in such a way that it gives us the opportunity to observe behavior and gain an understanding of how that behavior may or may not change before versus during that construction activity,” said Brendan Runde, another scientist with the Nature Conservancy.