So, it seems that there will be another set of offshore wind turbines.  Not just the ones in New England and off the coast of Baltimore (MD).

The next set will be just outside of Portsmouth (VA).  Dominion Energy (formerly known as Virginia Power) and Gamesa Renewable Energy (a unit of Siemens)  are the folks building and then operating this 80 acre wind farm.

Yes, 80 acres.  Which means this will be the biggest wind farm in the USA.  Some 27 miles off the coast of the Commonwealth of Virginia.  It will create enough power to run 660K homes (at peak usage, about 3 Megawatts).   That’s about 90% the size of the largest plant in the Commonwealth, the Bath County Pumped  Storage Station.   It will avoid the release of some 5 million tons of carbon dioxide a year.

Why Portsmouth?  Because it has deep water access (plus the requisite winds)- and no bridges to block its way.  With a 55 foot depth, this port will easily accommodate the 472 foot long installation ship.  Being built in Brownsville (TX) at a cost of $ ½ billion, the Charybdis will be operational by 2023.

Europe currently has 5400 turbines yielding some 25 gigawatts capacity, enough for 8 million homes.  (That means this one new facility will be about 1/16 the capacity as all of Europe.)

Supposedly some 300 jobs will be created as a result of this offshore wind farm.  (I think that will be mostly during the construction and shake down phases of the project.)

https://www.wavy.com/news/local-news/portsmouth/gov-northam-elected-officials-to-make-major-offshore-wind-announcement-monday-in-portsmouth/

As is true for the offshore Maryland facility, the turbine blades will be made in Virginia.  (These two production facilities, plus those in the port of Albany and the Paulsboro Marine Terminal (NJ) comprise the sum total of all the current blade finishing facilities located in the USA.)  Because transporting those blades costs too much and is a logistical nightmare.

President Biden hopes to have some 7 offshore wind farms in the hopper by 2025, and by 2030 some 30 gigawatts of power (that’s more than 2000 turbines!) will be produced this way.  (Dominion plans to provide 1/6 that total- 5.2 gigawatts.)

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