US utility Dominion Energy Inc (NYSE:D) has obtained the last two major federal approvals it needed to initiate construction work on the 2.6-GW Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project, it announced on Tuesday.
The company said in a statement that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has provided its final approval of CVOW’s Construction and Operations Plan (COP), while the US Army Corps of Engineers has separately issued a permit that clears the route of the electric transmission line.
According to Bob Blue, Dominion Energy’s chair, president, and CEO, the project remains on time and on budget. Following the start of some onshore construction activities in November, initial offshore construction work related to the export cable and the monopile foundation installation is scheduled to begin in the second quarter of 2024.
The 176-turbine facility and its three offshore substations will be built in a nearly 113,000-acre lease area off the coast of Virginia Beach. The offshore wind farm is expected to become operational in late 2026 at which point it will have the capacity to power up to 660,000 homes.
In November, chief executive Blue said that the company was in the advanced stages of a process to identify an investor willing to take a non-controlling equity stake in CVOW and that this process had driven considerable interest. The idea behind the stake sale is to de-risk the project.
