Dominion Energy Archives - Page 3 of 7

Dominion Energy says court challenge not delaying Virginia wind project

May 2, 2024 — A coalition of groups opposing the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Project was in a Washington, D.C. federal court this week, seeking a preliminary injunction to stop construction work in May.

Conservative activist groups the Heartland Institute, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), and the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) sued Dominion Energy and the Biden administration over federal permits for the planned 2.6 gigawatt project of 176 turbines.

The plaintiffs claim the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and other federal agencies “have not done the legally required research to determine the project won’t harm the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale,” according to a Heartland Institute statement.

U.S. District Court Judge Loren AliKhan called on lawyers for Dominion, the government and plaintiffs to file more papers and responses by May 9, before she rules on the groups’ request for a preliminary injunction.

Read the full story at WorkBoat

Offshore wind opponents mount court challenge to Virginia project

March 21, 2024 — Wind power opponents filed a long-expected court challenge to the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, in a bid to stop Dominion Energy’s planned start of construction May 1.

The lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia is focused on claims that construction and operation of the planned 2.6-gigawatt-rated turbine array will harm the already extremely endangered North Atlantic right whale population, now estimated at only around 350 animals and already at risk from ship strikes and fishing gear entanglement.

The Heartland Institute, Center for a Constructive Tomorrow and the National Legal and Policy Center, groups with ties to conservative, libertarian and oil and gas energy interests, are at the top of the complaint filed in federal court.

Heartland and allies have already worked to oppose Mid-Atlantic wind power development off the Delmarva coast, citing potential impact on commercial fishing, Ocean City, Md.’s tourism economy and interference with Navy and military aviation operations offshore.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

VIRGINIA: Dominion Energy to pay nearly $1M over turbine views in Virginia Beach

March 9, 2024 — Virginia utility Dominion Energy will pay nearly $1 million to offset the impacts to coastal views from its 176-turbine offshore wind farm in Virginia Beach.

The company will pay the city $290,000 for visual impacts. Virginia Beach’s City Council voted earlier this week to use the money for historical preservation projects. Separately, the Richmond, Virginia, power company will pay $650,000 to the first Cape Henry Lighthouse on the Virginia coast, also for visual impacts. The Dominion payments were first reported by The Virginian-Pilot.

Dominion is also contributing $550,000 to the Currituck Beach Lighthouse in North Carolina.

Read the full article at E&E News

Dominion Energy Sells Half Virginia Offshore Wind Farm for $3B to Stonepeak

February 24, 2024 — Dominion Energy has agreed to sell half of its planned Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project in a move the company reports is designed to reduce its risk profile as the giant wind farm moves into construction. The company will sell a 50 percent noncontrolling interest in a newly formed partnership to Stonepeak, one of the leading U.S. private equity firms that is focused on infrastructure.

Under the terms of the agreement, which requires regulatory approval, the companies would be partners in a newly created public utility that would be a subsidiary of Dominion Energy. The company reports it expects to receive approximately $3 billion representing half the construction costs of the wind farm. Dominion Energy will retain full operational control for the construction and operation of the wind firm with the two companies sharing in the costs.

The Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind farm has completed its permitting and is approved to begin construction which is projected to cost approximately $10 billion. Dominion previously reported that the first components of the wind farm were already being staged in Virginia with the major contracts awarded for the project which they report remains on schedule and budget. There are provisions in the agreement for cost overruns above $11.3 billion.

Read the full article at The Maritime Executive

VIRGINIA: Dominion ‘on track’ with $9.8 bln Virginia offshore wind farm

February 9, 2023 — Dominion Energy Inc (D.N) executives said on Wednesday that the electric utility’s $9.8 billion offshore Virginia wind farm is on track and on budget, having recently entered a critical phase of the environmental review process.

The roughly month-long crucial public comment period on the environmental impact study of the 2.6 gigawatt project will end in February, Dominion Chief Executive Officer Robert Blue said on the Richmond, Virginia-based company’s quarterly earnings call.

“As it relates to the project’s execution, it’s very much on track and on budget,” Blue said, adding that Dominion is working with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and other overseers of U.S. offshore wind development.

Read the full article at Reuters

VIRGINIA: State regulators approve Dominion Energy plans for offshore wind farm – with customers set to pay

December 19, 2022 — Dominion Energy’s planned wind farm got crucial approval from Virginia regulators this week.

The company filed its application with the State Corporation Commission last year. It’s been a long process since then, with legal back-and-forths between environmental groups, state officials and others.

The SCC’s new order approves an agreement Dominion reached with the Attorney General’s office this fall. It outlines who must pay for the billions of dollars the project is expected to cost.

Read the full article at WHRO

VIRGINIA: Offshore wind project “at a crossroads” Dominion argues

October 3, 2022 — Dominion Energy is arguing that it may “be forced” to pull the plug on its proposed offshore wind project if a performance guarantee remains imposed on it by the State Corporation Commission.

On Aug. 5, the SCC approved a rate adjustment clause, or rider, attached to consumers’ power bills so Dominion can recover costs associated with its proposed offshore wind project. The SCC order also included a performance guarantee to protect consumers from potential extra costs if the wind turbines don’t perform as well as expected.

The $9.8 billion wind farm— planned for 27 miles off Virginia Beach— is the largest energy project ever undertaken in the state and would be the largest wind project in the country.

But Dominion challenged the performance guarantee and the SCC agreed to reconsider it — kicking off a window in which both the utility company and other parties have responded.

“It is the regulator’s job to balance monopoly profit motives by adopting common and reasonable standards that will protect Virginians,” Laura Gonzalez, a policy manager with Clean Virginia said in a statement.

Clean Virginia is one of the environmental groups that responded.

But Dominion objected to the guarantee, asserting it could create uncertainty for its investors and hold the company responsible for things outside of its control — citing extreme weather as example.

Read the full article at the Richmond Times-Dispatch

VIRGINIA: Utility: Guarantee for large offshore wind farm ‘untenable’

August 24, 2022 — A ratepayer protection that state regulators included in a recent order approving Dominion Energy Virginia’s application to build and recover the costs of a massive offshore wind farm will force the utility to scrap the project, Dominion said in a filing this week.

The State Corporation Commission granted approval this month for the 176-turbine, multibillion-dollar project off Virginia Beach. Dominion immediately raised concerns about the commission’s inclusion of a performance guarantee for the wind farm and in a petition Monday asked the regulators to reconsider that element of their order.

As feds eye more wind leases off Virginia, fishing industries fear losses

June 23, 2022 — Today, two wind turbines turn off Virginia’s coast. But by the middle of the next decade, hundreds more may have joined them.

With a major push underway by President Joe Biden’s administration to develop 30 gigawatts of offshore wind as a way to reduce U.S. reliance on fossil fuels, federal officials are looking to dramatically expand the areas where wind farms can be built in U.S. waters.

Virginia is an epicenter of interest: Of 4 million acres of ocean identified as potential wind energy areas in a new Central Atlantic call area, most lie off the Virginia coast.

For the commonwealth’s fishing industries, already wary of what their business will look like once Dominion Energy’s 176-turbine Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project is constructed, the prospect of a much more expansive buildout of wind power throughout the rich fishing grounds off Virginia is sparking fears that the new industry will drive out the old.

“We know that when these lease areas are built out, it is going to be displacing fishermen, who are then going to be working smaller and smaller areas with more and more boats, which is going to lead to localized depletion,” said Tom Dameron, government relations and fisheries science liaison for Surfside Foods, a New Jersey-based commercial clam fishing company that last year landed roughly 10 percent of the East Coast’s entire surf clam harvest in Cape Charles.

Read the full story at the Virginia Mercury

At Dominion wind hearings, continued disputes over ratepayer protections

May 20, 2022 — After two and a half days of testimony in Richmond, consumer protection advocates continue to disagree with Dominion Energy over whether regulators should require further safeguards for ratepayers as the utility seeks approval for its plans to build a massive wind farm off the coast of Virginia Beach.

“There is no blank check for this project,” said Joseph Reid, an attorney from McGuireWoods who represented Dominion in the case before the State Corporation Commission, on Tuesday.

But Senior Assistant Attorney General Meade Browder told the SCC that the office’s Division of Consumer Counsel remains concerned that customers face significant risks from the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project.

“Our position is that approval should come with meaningful protections that mitigate the risk to ratepayers, who are currently set up to bear the financial risk if the CVOW project proves to be more costly to construct and operate than is projected or if the performance of the project does not meet the level projected by the company,” he said.

If built, CVOW will be the largest wind farm in the United States, producing 2.6 gigawatts of power — more than what is generated by the state’s nuclear units and its largest gas plant combined — from 176 turbines sunk into the Atlantic Ocean 27 miles off Virginia Beach.

The project is both a key component of Dominion’s plans to decarbonize its fleet by midcentury in line with the Virginia Clean Economy Act and, with an estimated price tag of $9.65 billion, the most expensive endeavor the utility has undertaken to date. If approved by regulators, the average residential customer, defined as someone who uses 1,000 kilowatts of power every month, would see their monthly bill initially rise by $1.45. SCC staff have estimated that figure could rise to $14.21 by the time the project enters operation in 2027.

Read the full story at the Virginia Mercury