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Plans for Chesapeake Bay wind turbine suspended
Credit: By Julian Walker, The Virginian-Pilot, hamptonroads.com 8 May 2012 ~~
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A towering offshore wind turbine off the Eastern Shore seemed likely as recently as late March, when the state gave its blessing for a prototype energy spire in the Chesapeake Bay.
Barely one month later, those plans have been blown away.
Gamesa Energy USA and its partner on the project, Huntington Ingalls’ Newport News Shipbuilding, announced Monday the suspension of work to erect a 479-foot-tall turbine near Cape Charles. They cited concerns over federal energy policy and the possible expiration of a renewable energy tax credit among their reasons for halting the effort.
“Without a mature wind market in the United States, it is extremely difficult to justify the enormous expenditure of capital and utilization of engineering and technical resources that would be needed to build and install a prototype in the U.S.,” a Gamesa news release said.
The prototype was intended to produce 5 megawatts of wind-generated electricity that would be transmitted to shore for consumption. Under the original timeline, construction was to be completed by late 2013.
Now, it’s unclear whether the project will be revived.
The companies involved were expected to invest $30 million, an attorney representing the firms said in March, when the Virginia Marine Resources Commission approved the turbine proposal. Approval also required the companies to put up an initial $2.1 million to pay for removal of the structure if it was decommissioned and to pay a one-time royalty of $52,667 for the use of state waters as a turbine site.
Gov. Bob McDonnell said he was dismayed by the news, and he faulted federal policies for the decision, saying Virginia has done its part to welcome offshore wind and streamline permitting for it.
“This project will not move forward due to the ongoing lack of a true national energy policy, and a global market that has become more difficult for offshore wind in the past few years,” he said in a statement.
Environmentalists are likewise frustrated that the plug is being pulled.
Sierra Club program manager Eileen Levandoski blamed Congress for failing to extend a wind-energy tax credit. She urged federal lawmakers to take immediate action on the tax credit “to avoid further job losses in the wind industry as we potentially see with Gamesa abandoning its wind project in Virginia.”
Despite the Gamesa decision, however, coastal Virginia waters might yet host offshore wind apparatus. Eight companies have formally expressed interest in developing wind farms beyond Virginia’s shores, according to the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
The Obama administration wants to speed the application and permit process to establish wind turbines in American waters; offshore leases for that purpose could be auctioned later this year or early next year.
Pilot writer Scott Harper contributed to this report.
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