October 22, 2025 — About 30 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach, Virginia, workers have been building America’s largest offshore wind farm at a breakneck pace. The project will start feeding power to the grid by March — the most definitive start date provided by its developer yet.
“First power will occur in Q1 of next year,” Dominion Energy spokesperson Jeremy Slayton told Canary Media. “And we are still on schedule to complete by late 2026.”
In an August earnings call, Dominion Energy CEO Robert Blue provided a vague window of “early 2026” when asked when the 2.6-gigawatt Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, or CVOW, project would start generating renewable power for the energy-hungry state.
As of the end of September, Dominion had installed all 176 turbine foundations — “a big, important milestone,” per Slayton. That accomplishment involved pile-driving 98 foundations into the soft seabed during the five-month stretch when such work is permitted. Good weather helped the work move along quickly, as did the Atlantic Ocean’s unusually quiet hurricane season.
Speed is key when building wind projects under the eye of a president who has called turbines “ugly” and “terrible for tourism” — and who has followed up with attempts to dismantle the industry.
Had CVOW not finished foundation installation by the end of this month, turbine construction would have been delayed until next spring. Federal permitting restricts pile-driving to a May-through-October window to protect migrating North Atlantic right whales. Such a delay would have made CVOW more vulnerable to the wrath of the Trump administration, which has already issued stop-work orders to two offshore wind farms under construction.