Federal regulators gave the green light to the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) commercial project in 2023 C.E., marking the largest offshore wind approval in U.S. history at that point. The project, located roughly 23.5 nautical miles off Virginia Beach, would deliver up to 2,600 megawatts of clean energy — enough to power more than 900,000 homes.
At a glance
- Offshore wind capacity: The CVOW project would install up to 176 wind turbine generators, each rated at 14.7 megawatts, for a total of roughly 2,600 megawatts.
- Clean energy jobs: Construction is projected to support about 900 jobs per year, with an estimated 1,100 annual jobs during the operations phase in Virginia’s Hampton Roads region.
- U.S. wind pipeline: CVOW was the fifth commercial-scale offshore wind project approved under the Biden administration, part of a national goal to reach 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030 C.E.
Why this project stands out
At the time of approval, no offshore wind project in U.S. history had been greenlighted at this scale. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), which sits within the Department of the Interior, issued a Record of Decision selecting a combination of project layouts designed to reduce conflicts with commercial shipping lanes and a known fish haven while still meeting Virginia’s energy needs.
The turbines will stand in federal waters, staged for construction at the Portsmouth Marine Terminal, where the first eight monopile foundations had already arrived by late October 2023 C.E. That arrival was itself a milestone — a visible sign that the project had moved from planning into physical reality.
Dominion Energy, the project developer, committed to establishing fishery mitigation funds to compensate recreational and commercial fishers for any direct losses. The company also agreed to vessel speed restrictions and construction clearance zones to protect marine mammals, sea turtles, and Atlantic sturgeon.
A broader buildout takes shape
CVOW joined four previously approved projects — Vineyard Wind 1, South Fork Wind, Ocean Wind 1, and Revolution Wind — in a growing U.S. offshore wind portfolio. Together, those five projects were expected to add more than five gigawatts of clean energy to the national grid, powering over 1.75 million homes.
BOEM also held four offshore wind lease auctions during this period, drawing nearly $5.5 billion in high bids. That total included a record-breaking sale offshore New York and the first-ever auctions offshore the Pacific and Gulf Coasts. The agency was also exploring wind development in the Gulf of Maine and off the Oregon and Central Atlantic coasts.
The approval process involved nation-to-nation consultations with Tribes, input from state and local agencies, and multiple rounds of public comment on the Environmental Impact Statement — a deliberate, if slow, approach to building a new offshore industry from the ground up.
What it means for Virginia
The Hampton Roads area stands to gain more than clean electricity. The region is positioning itself as a hub for offshore wind development and supply-chain support, with the Portsmouth Marine Terminal playing a central staging role. That kind of infrastructure investment tends to outlast any single project.
Offshore wind also carries broader economic implications. The manufacturing, shipbuilding, and construction sectors all have a stake in the supply chain that a project of this size requires. Advocates for union labor pointed to the administration’s stated goal of steering offshore wind toward union-built projects and a domestically based supply chain as a meaningful shift in how the industry was being structured.
Honest limits worth noting
The U.S. offshore wind industry has faced real headwinds since this approval. Rising interest rates, supply-chain inflation, and contract disputes led several developers to cancel or renegotiate projects in 2023 C.E. and 2024 C.E. CVOW itself has faced cost pressures, and the broader 30-gigawatt-by-2030 C.E. target looks increasingly difficult to meet on schedule. The approval of a project is a necessary step — but it is not the same as a completed turbine turning in the wind.
Still, the physical and regulatory progress made during this period — turbine foundations on a Virginia dock, lease revenues in the billions, and a federal permitting process that actually moved — represents genuine momentum in a sector that barely existed in American waters a decade earlier.
Read more
For more on this story, see: CleanTechnica — Biden-Harris administration approves largest offshore wind project in the nation
For more from Good News for Humankind, see:
- Renewables now make up at least 49% of global power capacity
- Ghana establishes a marine protected area at Cape Three Points
- The Good News for Humankind archive on renewable energy
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