ODU is working on a site-locating tool to aid offshore wind developers. Photo by Elizabterh Cooper
The answer, they say, is blowin’ in the wind.
In August 2020, Old Dominion University won a $775,000 grant from the Department of Defense that will help create a “wind energy siting solution,” enabling offshore and onshore wind-energy developers to avoid potential conflicts with military operations and trainings.
The ODU grant followed Dominion Energy Inc.’s June 2020 installation of two monster wind turbines some 27 miles off Cape Henry during the summer — the first wind turbines in the nation in federal waters.
The two turbines — each standing more than 600 feet above the ocean surface — eventually will be joined by more than 180 even larger turbines in an adjacent 112,800-acre expanse of the Atlantic Ocean leased by Dominion Energy from the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. Plans call for construction to begin in 2024 on the largest single offshore wind project in the country. Known as Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind and scheduled for completion in 2026, it will provide 2.6 gigawatts of power, enough for more than 650,000 customers.
