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Power Government United States

Biggest Offshore Wind Project In US To Resume Construction (cnbc.com) 55

A federal judge has temporarily lifted the Trump administration's suspension of the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, allowing construction on the largest offshore wind project in the U.S. to resume. CNBC reports: Judge Jamar Walker of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia granted Dominion's request for a preliminary injunction Friday. Dominion called the Trump suspension "arbitrary and illegal" in its lawsuit. "Our team will now focus on safely restarting work to ensure CVOW begins delivery of critical energy in just weeks," a Dominion spokesperson told CNBC in a statement Friday. "While our legal challenge proceeds, we will continue seeking a durable resolution of this matter through cooperation with the federal government," the spokesperson said.

Dominion said in December that "stopping CVOW for any length of time will threaten grid reliability for some of the nation's most important war fighting, AI and civilian assets." Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind is a 176-turbine project that would provide enough power for more than 600,000 homes, according to Dominion. It is scheduled to start dispatching power by the end of the first quarter of 2026.
In December, the Trump administration paused the leases on all five offshore wind sites currently under construction in the U.S., blaming the decisions on a classified report from the Department of Defense.
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Biggest Offshore Wind Project In US To Resume Construction

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  • Good (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 17, 2026 @03:05AM (#65930896)

    Fuck that orange asshole and everyone who voted for him

  • by Epeeist ( 2682 ) on Saturday January 17, 2026 @04:07AM (#65930948) Homepage

    blaming the decisions on a classified report from the Department of Defense

    What's the difference between "not being able to see the evidence" and "the evidence does not exist"?

  • by shilly ( 142940 ) on Saturday January 17, 2026 @08:11AM (#65931102)

    I’m curious about how this 660,000 figure was calculated. 2.6GW would be just about 4kW of capacity per home for 660,000 homes. But these calculations are normally done on the basis of sustained annual average draw. For the US, that is more like 1.2 to 1.5kW, a truly insane number (the UK average is 0.4, ie 400W, and in China it’s more like 2 to 300W). But even at 1.5kW, that wind farm could deliver enough capacity for 1.7m homes, not 660k.

    I think, for some dumb reasons the calculation is being done off the average peak load. But that is more like 5kW than 4kW, so that figure is wrong.

    It would really make more sense to do the calculation on the basis of expected annual generation divided by annual average US household consumption, which heads off all the nonsense about nameplate capacity. That would be 9.5bn kWh divided by 10,800kWh, so about 880,000 homes.

    • I usually assume 2kW per home. I probably read that in a few places, that number is kind of 'stuck' in my head. Ya, in my opinion that is kind of high compared to other nations, or even what it should be. We Americans seem to like our homes at the "perfect temperature", all rooms year round, and don't think twice about using high energy gadgets.
    • by rossdee ( 243626 )

      Maybe they are using electricity for heating, and its winter at the moment. They might also have an EV

    • I think it's reasonable to estimate it by peak load. You simply can't count on higher figures knowing you'll eventually and certainly fall short.

      Otherwise, if you say you could provide energy to millions of homes, what would you do when it's peak season and more than half of them suddenly lose power?

      P.S.:

      1) Maybe the statement of 660,000 homes is already considering and deducting commercial and industrial use.
      2) One solution would be of course to say "at least 660,000 homes" or "from 660,000 up to 1.7 milli

      • by shilly ( 142940 )

        Your scenario makes sense for an isolated system, where there were a bunch of homes whose electricity was exclusively supplied by this single wind farm. But obviously, that's not the case: it's part of a system of heterogenous supply, so this is just a theoretical and indicative calculation the operator or media have used to give people a sense of the scale of this project compared to others / the scale of the US as a whole. And that's where I'm puzzled, I can't see how they got to their indicative figure.

        P

    • As you say nameplate is pretty meaningless. At the moment TX wind is running at around 50% of nameplate (17GW, nameplate 35). And there are moderate winds. Today looks a bit unusual with winds sustaining thru the day. A more typical day has winds drop to maybe 20% of nameplate thru the day. I don't think I've ever seen it hit nameplate, maybe 90% of it. I've no idea how they convert nameplate to homes. And really does it matter these days. It ought to be nameplate to data centers. The new consumer, especial
    • I think, for some dumb reasons the calculation is being done off the average peak load.

      Honestly it makes no sense to quote average sustained figures on a wind farm. Peak makes more sense. But in any case it's a pretty useless way to describe something as complex as power, especially in our ever changing word. Maybe they are quoting name plate vs capacity factor corrected?

      • by shilly ( 142940 )

        Having seen some of the comments, I'm now truly firmly of the belief that the only valid method of doing this calculation is to calculate power generated per year and divide that by average annual household consumption. That takes account of capacity factor on the one hand, and peaks and troughs in demand on the other.

        The peak figure is important for peaker plants, where the question is one of capacity adequacy, but this is not that project, and the question is one of scale of net new generation.

  • by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Saturday January 17, 2026 @11:43AM (#65931306)

    The US is going down the drains, with the voters increasingly ignored and the politicians asleep. Might not be a good idea to build anything there now.

  • The median businessman has no idea how capitalism works; at the 90th percentile they are actively opposed.

    The most anti-business person in the room is going to be a mercantilist businessman. He sees that most businesses are not *his* business and thus being anti-business in general he can make other businesses perform worse. The mercantilist thinks this is winning.

  • I'll be more impressed when there are more than one or two such rulings from Republcan judges. They only take these suits to Biden and Obama judges. Even the Obama ones are less party hacks.

  • From today every project done with US will carry an even heavier a risk overhead. In order to handle the ever present risk that an arbitrary president at any time may just shut down that project, for reasons agreed with bribing parties. Like "Drill baby, drill". This will cost every citizen in the US a substantial amount of wellfare in the future. Deducted from the already embarrasing level of general wellfare compared to European countries.

    This unfathomable tragic waste of welfare could have been avoided,

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