Virginia Beach News

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued the final air quality permit for Dominion Energy’s 2.6 GW Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project located off the coast of Virginia Beach in the United States.Issued on April 9 following a 30-day public comment period, the permit authorizes the construction and operation of the largest offshore wind project in the U.S.

DEME’s DP3 offshore installation vessel Orion has departed for the United States to prepare for the installation of 176 foundations on the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project, following the wrap up of works at the 882 MW Moray West offshore wind farm in Scotland.DEME’s flagship Orion vessel has completed monopile installation works on Ocean Winds’ Moray West offshore wind farm project in Scotland.Despite harsh winter conditions, DEME managed to install 29 monopiles in approximately two months.Meanwhile…

The United States' first Jones Act-compliant offshore wind turbine installation vessel (WTIV), Charybdis, was launched into the water at the Seatrium AmFELS shipyard in Brownsville, Texas.The 472-foot WTIV—the first and only to be constructed in the U.S.—is being built for Blue Ocean Energy Marine, a subsidiary of Dominion Energy, who announced the milestone on Monday. Welding of the ship's hull and commissioning of the vessel's four legs and related jacking system has been completed…

U.S.

Dominion Energy, the developer of Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) farm, has secured the last two major federal approvals needed to begin the construction of the 2.6 GW project.The approvals are keeping the largest offshore wind farm in the United States on schedule to generate clean, renewable energy to power up to 660,000 homes once fully constructed.The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) provided its final approval of CVOW's Construction and Operations Plan (COP), which authorizes construction offshore.The U.S.

The U.S. Department of Interior on Tuesday approved the construction and operations plan for the 2.6 GW Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, located approximately 23.5 nautical miles off Virginia Beach, VA.This is the fifth approval of a commercial-scale offshore wind energy project in the United States.Located approximately 23.5 nautical miles offshore Virginia Beach, the CVOW commercial project is the largest yet.According to the Department of Interior, the project is expected to provide about 900 jobs each year during the construction phase and support an estimated 1…

German offshore wind monopile maker EEW SPC said Monday that the first eight monopiles for the Dominion Energy Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Project in the U.S. were loaded at the Rostock quayside in Germany, and set sail for the U.S. on September 21, 2023.In preparation for RoRo loading, the monopiles were lifted into the transport cradle using the Strand Jack system. Now aboard the carrier deck, the foundations are on their way to Portsmouth Marine Terminal in Portsmouth, Va.…

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) said Monday it had completed its environmental review of the proposed Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) commercial project.“The completion of our environmental review marks another step towards a clean energy future—one that benefits communities and co-exists with other ocean users,” said BOEM Director Elizabeth Klein. “The best available science and knowledge shared by Tribes, other government agencies, local communities, ocean users…

On a windswept island 50 miles north of Seattle sits a U.S. Navy monitoring station. For years, it was kept busy tracking whale movements and measuring rising sea temperatures. Last October, the Navy gave the unit a new name that better reflects its current mission: Theater Undersea Surveillance Command.The renaming of the spy station at the Whidbey Island naval base is a nod to a much larger U.S. military project, according to three people with direct knowledge of the plans:…

U.S. energy company Dominion Energy said on Friday that its roughly $10 billion Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project was on budget and on track for completion in late 2026.The company said in its second quarter earnings presentation that it expected to get a Record of Decision from the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Management (BOEM) in the second half of 2023. The Record of Decision is a step in the process before construction can start.The roughly 2,600-megawatt (MW) project consists of 176 turbines…

Avangrid has awarded TDI-Brooks a shallow water geotechnical site investigation survey at block OCS A-0508, also known as Kitty Hawk Wind. The data collected will inform the design of the export cable and inter-array packages.The scope of work includes utilizing a TDI-Brooks’ owned Datum Neptune 5K (pCPT) at 155 sites and a newly-designed TDI-Brooks pneumatic vibracorer (pVC) at 80 sites. The pVC is a light weight (4,600-lb in air), high power vibracorer and has been successfully deployed on the US East Coast >200 times for offshore wind farm (OSWF) projects.

Massachusetts Maritime Academy conducted its annual regimental Change of Command Ceremony in conjunction with the celebration of National Maritime Day on Wednesday, May 24.The Change of Command Ceremony is both the symbolic and physical transfer of leadership responsibilities from the graduating senior class to members of the junior class. During the ceremony, held at the Clean Harbors Athletic Stadium on the Academy’s campus, the outgoing Regiment of Cadets Commander 1/C Abigail Pope of Falmouth, Mass., passed her responsibilities to 2/C Cole Francavilla of Stoneham, Mass.

U.S. offshore wind developer Dominion Energy is this week kicking off unexploded ordinance identification within the export cable corridor and the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) lease area located offshore of Virginia Beach, Virginia.The U.S. Coast Guard said in a notice to mariners that the UXO works would start on or about April 25, 2023, and run until Fall 2023.The UXO Identification work will begin with the mobilization of the M/V Subsea Responder I, followed shortly by the M/V Subsea Responder II.

The crane for the first ever U.S.-built wind turbine installation vessel (WTIV) is on its way to America.The 2,200mt Huisman leg encircling crane has been loaded onto BigLift Shipping's Happy Star for shipment to the Keppel AmFELS shipyard in Brownsville, Texas, where it will be installed on Charybdis, a WTIV being built for Blue Ocean Energy Marine, a Dominion Energy company. The heavy lift ship recently left China, according to AIS ship tracking data.Once delivered, Huisman North America…

Dominion Energy 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…

One year after Lumen Technologies (NYSE: LUMN) established a new subsea fiber route between the U.S. and France, the company is increasing network capacity and diversity, investing in a fiber pair on Grace Hopper, a subsea cable system spearheaded by Google, between New York and Bude, Cornwall in the U.K. The Grace Hopper system will use Lumen landing station and infrastructure services at both locations."Data flow and capacity demands don't know boundaries. The bandwidth explosion across continents is real and we're meeting it head on by investing in new subsea cables…

Sweden-based Skanska, one of the country's largest construction firms, has signed a contract with the Virginia Port Authority to rebuild 72 acres of the Portsmouth Marine Terminal in Portsmouth, Virginia, USA. The project will redevelop approximately 72 acres of the 287-acre Portsmouth Marine Terminal for use as an offshore wind staging port which will improve 1,500 feet of an existing 3,540-foot wharf.Skanska will include the contract worth $223 million, about SEK 2.3 billion…

My first visit in 2007 to the American Society of Naval Engineers’ (ASNE) Multi-Agency Craft Conference (MACC) was an eye-opener. Having built a naval architecture career with frigates, destroyers and other large naval and commercial ships, I was eager to learn of the smaller craft used by the U.S. Navy and other government and military bodies. As my flight into Norfolk, Va. descended over Chesapeake Bay, I gazed in amazement as a Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCAC) raced toward Virginia Beach, slowed, glided up the beach and into its shore base.

More than 100 passengers, the vast majority of them school children, were rescued from a passenger vessel that caught fire on Tuesday in Norfolk, Va.The fire aboard the Spirit of Norfolk was reported around noon, while the vessel was on a cruise in the Elizabeth River, near Naval Station Norfolk. Images and videos shared on social media show flames and heavy smoke rising from the 169-foot-long vessel. The cause of the fire is under investigation, though officials believe it started in the vessel's engine room.

The tenth International Dry Dock Conference is scheduled to take place in Virginia Beach, VA, September 22-23, 2022.The 10th in this series of International Dry Dock Conferences/Advanced Training Forums is set, with discussions and knowledge-share designed to provide advance training for those in the dry dock industry.While the adoption of innovative technologies has permeated nearly all industries, one that remains largely unchanged is the drydocking industry. Handling a vessel in drydocking is a large liability, and changes to methodologies creates risk.

The Port of Virginia and the US Army Corps of Engineers today signed the agreement committing the federal government to begin its financial investment in the construction effort to widen and deepen the commercial shipping channels and Norfolk Harbor.With a group of federal and state officials in attendance, Virginia Port Authority CEO Stephen A. Edwards and Col. Brian P. Hallberg, the US Army Corps of Engineers’ Norfolk District commander, signed the Project Partnership Agreement.

Offshore wind installation services company Seajacks UK, as of recently a subsidiary of Eneti, has established an operational base in the City of Virginia Beach, Va.Seajacks has been providing Blue Ocean Energy Marine, a Dominion Energy-owned company, with support services relating to the construction and operation of the first Jones Act compliant offshore wind turbine installation vessel, Charybdis, seen as a key vessel for the development of the U.S. offshore wind industry.The…

Huntington Ingalls Industries’ (HII) Technical Solutions division announced today the successful integration of its advanced autonomy solutions with Sea Machines Robotics’ SM300 autonomy product. The integration of these autonomous capabilities supports complex mission planning and collaboration between unmanned systems.The demonstration, which took place late last year in the Chesapeake Bay off the coast of Virginia Beach, involved overlaying HII’s collaborative autonomy and…