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VIRGINIA: Businesses, environmental groups back guarantee for Dominion wind project

September 22, 2022 — Last month, Dominion Energy asked the State Corporation Commission to reconsider a performance guarantee it attached to the utility’s proposed offshore wind project. The SCC agreed to revisit the matter and opened a response period — which garnered 13 responses from various groups.

Environmental nonprofit Clean Virginia is among the groups arguing that consumer protection is reasonable.

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

The organization’s filed response noted that projected profit from the wind project is more than enough to cover potential costs. The performance guarantee — which Dominion is asking regulators to reconsider — is meant to protect consumers from potentially absorbing additional costs if the turbines fail to perform as expected.

Read the full article at the Richmond Times-Dispatch

VIRGINIA: Oyster restoration stumbles in Virginia’s Lynnhaven River

September 14, 2022 — Back in the spring, Lynnhaven River Now was celebrating its efforts to rebuild the oyster population in one of the Chesapeake Bay’s most developed watersheds.

Undertaking the largest restoration project in its 20-year history, the nonprofit group started by spreading 190 barge-loads of crushed, recycled concrete across the bottom of Pleasure House Creek, one of the Lynnhaven’s tributaries.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the Lynnhaven group’s partner on the project, followed up by topping the underwater ridges with a thin layer of shells bearing fingernail-size baby oysters.

“New reefs could support 10 million oysters!” Lynnhaven River Now enthused in an April press release. In all, the two groups planned to create nearly 14 acres of oyster habitat in three separate reefs.

But then waterfront residents began complaining about seeing chunks of asphalt, metal wires and steel rebar mixed in with the concrete being put in the water. A state senator responded by holding public meetings to air residents’ grievances. He pressed authorities to investigate, and in July the Virginia Marine Resources Commission ordered CBF to completely remove everything put in the Lynnhaven so far this year.

The snafu has tarnished the reputation of the two environmental groups, at least in the eyes of some riverfront residents.

“The public confidence in the people who are supposed to be protecting the resources the most, [in other words] Lynnhaven River Now and Chesapeake Bay Foundation, have taken a hit. That’s a polite way of saying it,” said Charles “Chuck” Mehle, a longtime waterfront resident and former community association president who was among the project’s vocal critics.

It’s also roiled other restoration efforts in the Lynnhaven, which is one of five Bay tributaries in Virginia where the state has pledged to complete large-scale revival of oyster habitat by 2025. Waterfront residents are now criticizing plans by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to create more oyster reefs in the river.

Read the full story at the Bay Journal

VIRGINIA: Who will pay for Dominion’s $9.8 billion offshore wind farm?

September 8, 2022 — In a regulatory conflict over who should bear the costs of a proposed offshore wind farm in Virginia, the Youngkin Administration and environmental groups have found themselves on the same side, calling for action to limit Dominion’s profits from the project.

In an August ruling that will be finalized later this month, the Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC) ordered limited consumer protections on the project, while rejecting the more aggressive controls requested by the Youngkin administration and environmental groups like Clean Virginia.

Read the full article at WRIS

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.

Dominion “shares the Commission’s concern, as expressed in the Final Order, that the Project be constructed and operated in a way that reasonably mitigates risk for its customers. The Commission’s unprecedented imposition of an involuntary performance guarantee condition on its approvals, however, is untenable,” the filing said. “As ordered, it will prevent the Project from moving forward, and the Company will be forced to terminate all development and construction activities.”

Read the full story at the AP News

The Spinning of Virginia’s Wind Farm

August 22, 2022 — Now that their climate spending bill has been signed by President Biden, Democrats might go to bed dreaming of wind farms. What they’re sleeping through is the green logrolling and corporatism already evident in the clean-power transition. A good example is an offshore wind farm that Virginia regulators approved recently under obvious duress.

Dominion Energy plans to build 176 wind turbines 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach. That’s enough to power about 660,000 homes. The capital cost is $9.8 billion. The state Corporation Commission assented to a related rate increase, but it noted that the downside risk is on consumers. Typically, the commission says, a utility might buy such power from an outside developer, “which limits the risks to customers.” Yet Dominion “has chosen to construct, own and operate the Project.”\

Read the full article at the Wall Street Journal

VIRGINIA: Contract Awarded for Modifications for Wind Staging Port in Virginia

August 17, 2022 — The Virginia Port Authority is moving ahead with the redevelopment of a portion of the Portsmouth Marine Terminal for use as an offshore wind staging port. The port authority has awarded a contract to Skanska for work at the terminal to prepare it as the staging area to support the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, which currently is the largest offshore wind energy project of its kind in the U.S.

Skanda was selected for projects at the site which will make it ready to handle the vessels which will transfer materials from the assembly and staging operations planned for the Portsmouth Marine Terminal. Skanda reports the contract is valued at $223 million.

“Virginia plans to construct 180 off-shore wind turbines to provide enough energy for 660,000 homes,” said Brook Brookshire, senior vice president of Skanska civil operations. “Skanska is honored to work on an innovative and sustainable project that supports the state’s clean energy goals and reflects our value to build for a better society.”

Read the full article at The Maritime Executive

VIRGINIA: Northampton to meet with VMRC over fish spills

August 15, 2022 — Net tears have resulted in two large fish spills in Kiptopeke and Silver Beach. Last year, Omega Protein spilled more than 400,000 dead menhaden fish into Hampton Roads waters, something the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) criticized as an “environmental failure.”

The result of the latest spills has led Northampton County Board Chair Betsy Mapp and Administrator Charlie Kolakowski, along with Senator Lynwood Lewis, to set a meeting with the Virginia Marine Resources Commissioner Jamie Green.

The meeting is scheduled for August 19.

Read the full article at Cape Charles Mirror

Fisherman Gets 20 Years in Prison for Nantucket Murder

August 15, 2022 —

A Virginia fisherman was sentenced Thursday to nearly 20 years in prison for murdering a crewmate and attacking others with a hammer aboard a scalloping vessel off the coast of Nantucket in 2018.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office said 31-year-old Franklin Freddy Meave Vazquez was sentenced to 235 months — more than 19 and a half years — in prison followed by three years of probation.

According to the office, the Mexican national is in the U.S. illegally and will face deportation after his sentence.

Meave Vazquez pleaded guilty in March to one count each of second degree murder, attempted murder and assault with a dangerous weapon.

He was one of seven crew members on the scalloping vessel The Captain Billy Haver when he attacked three fellow crewmates about 50 miles off the Nantucket coast in September 2018.

Read the full article at WBSM

VIRGINIA: Regulators OK Dominion’s planned wind farm off Virginia Beach’s coast

August 8, 2022 — State regulators on Friday approved an application from Dominion Energy Virginia to build an enormous offshore wind farm off the coast of Virginia Beach and recover the cost from ratepayers.

No parties to the monthslong proceeding had opposed the approval of the project, which will help the utility boost the proportion of its generation that comes from renewable resources. But many had raised concerns about affordability and possible risks to the utility’s captive ratepayers.

In its Friday order, the State Corporation Commission noted that the 176-turbine Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Project will likely be the single largest project in Dominion’s history and said that because of its size, complexity and location, it faces an array of challenges. The commission included in its order three “consumer protections,” including a performance standard.

The commission’s order also approved facilities that will connect the wind farm to the existing transmission system.

Read the full article at 13 News Now

VIRGINIA: SCC backs millions in rate increases for Dominion’s offshore wind project

August 8, 2022 — Virginia’s State Corporation Commission has approved Dominion Energy’s application to recover costs for its proposed massive Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Project — but the $9.8 billion wind farm comes with a significant cost to electric utility ratepayers.

The commission approved a revenue requirement of $78 million for the rate year of Sept. 1, 2022, to Aug. 1, 2023, to be recovered through higher rates for customers in a new clause attached to their monthly bills.

Over the next 35 years, the SCC estimates that a Dominion residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per month will see an increase of $4.72 a month, with a peak monthly billing hike of $14.22 in 2027.

The wind farm, planned 27 miles off the Atlantic coast from Virginia Beach, is the largest energy project ever undertaken in Virginia and would be the largest wind project in the country, as well as one of the biggest in the world.

The commission was constrained by the General Assembly from rejecting the project, which the legislature declared two years ago to be in the public interest. But the constitutionally independent regulatory body ordered Dominion to abide by a performance guarantee to protect consumers from additional costs if the farm of 176 wind turbines doesn’t perform as the company predicts.

Read the full article at Richmond Times