Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Pause
22 hours ago Guest Blogger
By Steve Haner
When your friends think you wrong and your opponents are saying nice things, a reevaluation of your position might be in order. Did it. It was still correct for the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy to put Virginia’s energy ratepayers first and express concern for the financial harm they might suffer if a wind turbine project gets cancelled.
Dominion Energy Virginia’s offshore wind project, now with a $10.7 billion price tag (not including decades of profit), is about half complete. A call to pause and perhaps cancel it was issued by a consortium of wind energy opponents from multiple states. President Donald Trump’s Executive Order has called for a review of pending projects, but it apparently did not pause Dominion’s and three other projects already under construction.
The Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy was invited to sign the petition to pause them all and did not. It then explained the rationale to Virginians, mainly to be sure they fully understood that the stranded costs and other financial impacts of any cancellation could land entirely on them. Here is the report we made, which also links to the letter sent to Trump’s Department of Interior.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/02/23/commonwealth-of-virginia-offshore-wind-pause/
