State Corporation Commission News

Much has been written recently about the challenges facing U.S. offshore wind projects, resulting in requests to terminate or renegotiate contracts to sell power to states. Examples of these challenges can be found from Massachusetts to Virginia. Coming on top of last week’s somewhat disappointing events of the Gulf of Mexico lease auction, speculation has mounted around the longer-term prospects for U.S. wind. But how serious is this problem, and what does it mean to the longer-term goals of the federal administration to deploy 30 GW of offshore wind by 203 and 110 GW by 2050?Below…

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…

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…

U.S. company Dominion Energy expects to file plans later on Friday with the Virginia State Corporation Commission for approval to construct the 2.6-gigawatt Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) commercial project, which will generate enough clean energy to power up to 660,000 homes."The filing keeps the project on schedule and builds on recent economic development announcements, such as the Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy turbine blade factory at the Portsmouth Marine Terminal and Dominion Energy's investment in the only U.S.

The U.S. is going to need a fleet of Jones Act-compliant vessels to support its budding offshore wind industry. The good news is that several of these vessels are currently operating or on order. Even better, there are plenty more in the pipeline.In 2016, Rhode Island-based Atlantic Wind Transfers (AWT) put into service the U.S.’ first-ever vessel purpose-built for offshore wind services. The 21-meter crew transfer vessel (CTV) Atlantic Pioneer was constructed by Blount Boats to serve America’s first commercial offshore wind project…

Shipbuilder Keppel AmFELS has laid the keel for the first ever Jones Act compliant offshore wind turbine installation vessel (WTIV) at its shipyard in Brownsville, Texas, marking a key milestone for the development of the U.S. offshore wind industry.With several gigawatts of offshore wind capacity to be installed along the U.S. East Coast in the next decade, access to Jones Act compliant WTIVs is of strategic importance to the U.S. offshore wind market. Currently no such vessel exists. Dominion Energy contracted with Keppel AmFELS, a wholly-owned U.S.

Dominion Energy and Ørsted have said that the turbine components and monopiles for the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) pilot project have started their journey to North America. The foundations, consisting of the turbines' monopiles, transition pieces and anode cages fabricated by EEW SPC, have been loaded onto the Bigroll Beaufort cargo ship in Rostock, Germany. The components for the two, 6-megawatt Siemens Gamesa turbines were loaded in Esbjerg, Denmark, before the vessel embarked in mid-April on the approximately two-week transatlantic journey to Halifax…

Now that the United States finally can envision steady winds blowing from the Atlantic Seaboard due to a pipeline of offshore wind farms on the horizon, the maritime industry can finally step up and earn some of the benefits. This includes shipbuilding, port construction, and worker training. This article reviews the key developments and forecasts the growth in maritime jobs.The federal and state governments share responsibility for developing offshore wind farms and bringing the wind into the power grid and…

The Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) demonstration project has entered the construction phase as the American power and energy company Dominion Energy has formally begun construction.Gov. Ralph Northam announced the start of construction of the CVOW demonstration project, consisting of two six-megawatt wind turbines located approximately 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach."This activity marks the first work at the project site to facilitate interconnection of the two 6-megawatt wind turbines which will power 3,000 homes at peak. Wind is part of a broader effort to deliver renewable energy, including solar, as we honor our commitment to reduce carbon emissions…

Carnival Corp. filed suit against the Virginia Pilot Association this week, seeking to recoup about $350,000 in what it says are overcharges by the pilots, which steer ships between the Atlantic Ocean and docking points in the port of Hampton Roads, according to a report in The Virginia-Pilot. At issue is how to properly calculate the volumes of the Fun Ships that Carnival has sailed from Hampton Roads several times a year for the past decade. The Pilot Association uses those volumes - based on the ships' length, width and height - to assess the fees it charges for its services. When determining the heights of the cruise ships, the pilots have been measuring from the vessels' bottoms to one of the uppermost decks of the towering ships.