US wind project full steam ahead with WTIV sea trials

The company announced it still expects the vessel, Charybdis, to complete the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project on time, ie by the end of 2026.

“Charybdis, the American built, flagged and crewed wind turbine installation vessel (WTIV) is now 96% complete and has completed sea trials in Brownsville, Texas,” Dominion said.

Sixteen transition pieces of ultimately 176 wind turbines have already been installed, it said, and the first of three 4,300t offshore substations have been delivered to Portsmouth Marine Terminal in Virginia Beach.

The wind farm will have a generation capacity of 2.6GW and Dominion says it is now 50% complete.

”Wind turbine tower and blade fabrication is now under way, with nacelle fabrication to begin later this quarter,” Dominion says. “Siemens Gamesa, the project’s wind turbine supplier, is manufacturing the same turbine model for CVOW as has been successfully fabricated, installed, and is now operating at the Moray West offshore wind project.”

Costs for the wind farm, it admits, have risen by about 9% since the original budget was submitted in November 2021, rising from $9.8 billion to $10.7 billion – but this is the first and only rise.

“Relative to the original budget of $9.8 billion, the cost increase is attributable to higher network upgrade costs which are assigned by PJM, the regional electric grid operator, to CVOW as part of the generator interconnect process and higher onshore electrical interconnection costs,” it says.