Energy progress off the coast

Twin turbines are the first step toward a cheaper, safer energy future

Here’s the energy headline out of Abu Dhabi, via a recent Columbia University podcast: “The energy sector landscape is experiencing profound change, complexity and uncertainty ... to a rapidly rising recognition of the urgency of combating climate change and accelerated investments in low-carbon technologies. The United Arab Emirates is at the center of these shifts .... “

Well, here’s another headline, folks, but this time right out of Hampton Roads:

Virginia sits at the “center,” too — right there at the breaking lip, the tip of spear and the leading edge (pick your metaphor) of the energy/climate revolution.

Who would have thought it? But right off our coast, just beyond the horizon, turning in the wind, stand two 600-foot, 12-megawatt turbine towers that have “successfully completed reliability testing.”

“This is a monumental day for the commonwealth and the burgeoning offshore wind industry in America as the (Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind pilot project) is ready to deliver clean, renewable energy to our Virginia customers,” said Joshua Bennett, Dominion Energy vice president of offshore wind.

Further steps lie just ahead. Nothing ever gets done easily with energy generation these days. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has a technical review to complete, to be finished by the end of December.

Regardless, Virginia’s wind turbines (forgive the proprietary pride) will remain operational during the review — the first fully operational wind power generation facility in U.S. federal waters.

The power coming off those turns will support up to 3,000 Virginia homes.

An additional news flash: It’s not free. Some self-appointed critics appear to think that wind turbines can be made to pop up in the middle of the water like oceanic toadstools.

Not so. But we’re catching this technology at a moment when its generating efficiency has dramatically leapt forward in a relatively short span of time.

While no rate increases will accompany the pilot project, the considerable cost of the larger undertaking will be spread out — as major, new technological leaps often are — and Dominion’s ratepayers and investors will be included.

But the progress to this point is real and the experience gained is invaluable. If all continues to go well, the proposed 2,600-megawatt project will begin construction in 2024 and provide enough renewable electricity to power up to 660,000 homes.

This investment makes sense. It turns Virginia in the right direction.

There’s more. Far more, potentially. Hampton Roads could easily become the staging location — functionally, a supply hub — for future wind projects up and down the U.S. East Coast.

Even this project alone — the “CVOW,” because all things need an acronym — could support the creation of 900 jobs and deliver a $143 million economic impact annually during construction, according to an analysis published by the Hampton Roads Alliance.

Bob Dylan got it right: “The Times They Are a-Changin” — and maybe they always will be.

So you adjust. You figure it out. You do things differently. And you spend the necessary money to make it happen. That’s been happening right off Virginia Beach and a new future has emerged as a consequence.

The energy revolution touches on everything. Little noticed, at least by the general public, the International Maritime Organization within the last year curtailed sulfur emissions from ships.

That decision will oblige the entire shipping industry, as well as energy markets, to do some serious cost/benefit analysis.

Do shipping firms switch to lower-sulfur fuel? Convert to liquid natural gas? What?

These are not inconsequential questions and are roughly analogous to what electric utilities have been required to do. It goes like this: Be as reliable as ever. Be as cheap as ever. Be as safe as ever.

But make the stuff — electricity — in some other way, if you don’t mind.

Remarkably, thanks to projects like the one off Virginia’s coast — CVOW, our very own turbines — that is actually happening.