Virginia Wind Project May Raise Energy Bills

A court decision has cleared the way for the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project, even after a former administration tried to stop it over security concerns. The plan was approved by the state regulator in 2022 under a law that forces the main utility, Dominion Energy, to become carbon‑free in 25 years. That law also says the state must build wind farms inside Virginia instead of buying power from other states. The regulator warned that the project could add more than $50 to a typical household’s bill, and up to $170 in some years. They also said it would be one of the costliest projects ever undertaken by a regulated utility, with construction alone expected to hit $10 billion and total costs more than double that. All of those expenses will eventually be passed on to customers through higher rates, even though the federal government is giving huge tax credits for the project. Dominion Energy claims that owning CVOW will lower costs by cutting the amount of expensive renewable power it must buy from outside. But that argument ignores the fact that state law already requires the utility to purchase “green” energy and shut down cheaper fossil fuel plants. If the wind farm fails, customers will also suffer higher supply‑risk costs because Dominion owns the project directly. Other utilities can buy wind power from independent producers, spreading the risk.According to the Energy Information Administration, offshore wind is already more than twice as expensive per megawatt‑hour as onshore wind and 3. 4 times more than natural gas, even before tax credits. Virginia’s coastal winds are weak, so the turbines would produce less than half of their rated capacity on average. Wind power is also intermittent: it peaks in spring and fall, when demand is low, and drops during hot summer afternoons, when demand is high. To keep the grid stable, backup power—usually gas‑fired plants—is needed around the clock. Running those backups costs extra money, and the turbines must be throttled up and down like a car idling in traffic, which reduces efficiency. In many cases, it is cheaper and more reliable to keep natural gas plants running continuously; they also last longer than wind turbines. A former president once called large‑scale renewable projects a “scam of the century, ” citing European examples where high wind and solar costs hurt economies. He pointed to Germany, which pays more than twice the U. S. price per kilowatt‑hour and still relies on batteries that can only store energy for about 20 minutes. Even if the legal battle over CVOW ends, stopping it will not lower Virginia’s energy bills because the regulator has already built those costs into the rate structure. The only “green” benefit comes from federal tax credits that ultimately come out of taxpayers’ pockets.