Essay by Eric Worrall
h/t M; Whereas the Virginia SCC is “keenly conscious of the continuing rise in gasoline costs, inflation, and different financial pressures”, they must obey the legislature.
The Spinning of Virginia’s Wind Farm
If the climate doesn’t cooperate, Dominion needs shoppers to pay.
By The Editorial Board
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Dominion Power plans to construct 176 wind generators 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Seashore. That’s sufficient to energy about 660,000 houses. The capital price is $9.8 billion. The state Company Fee assented to a associated price enhance, but it surely famous that the draw back threat is on shoppers. Usually, the fee says, a utility may purchase such energy from an outdoor developer, “which limits the dangers to clients.” But Dominion “has chosen to assemble, personal and function the Challenge.”
What might go improper? The fee says that “designs for varied elements of those generators” have “but to be finalized.” As a result of offshore wind at this scale is new to the U.S., “there isn’t any developed provide chain,” which “might result in building delays and value overruns.” What if it falls by for some cause? “Even when the Challenge is deserted on the finish of 2023,” the order says, “Dominion nonetheless estimates it might have prudently incurred roughly $3.7 billion of prices to be recovered from clients.”
So why approve the wind farm in any respect? As a result of the state Legislature mandated that such an offshore challenge “is within the public curiosity, and the Fee shall so discover.” The fee’s order sounds practically apologetic in saying that regulators are “keenly conscious of the continuing rise in gasoline costs, inflation, and different financial pressures,” however “this can be a prescriptive statute.”
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Virginia doesn’t get hammered as laborious by hurricanes as Florida and South Carolina, however the Virginia shoreline nonetheless will get a great battering each few years, so I don’t anticipate the offshore generators to final lengthy.
None of this issues to the Virginia legislators, who left the SCC no alternative apart from to grant a price rise to pay for this white elephant.
The one individuals who can repair this mess are Virginia voters, who’ve one probability this November to vote for brand spanking new legislators who will cease this politically imposed energy invoice blowout. After all November won’t be quickly sufficient to keep away from all of the electrical energy invoice surcharges – Dominion have already mentioned they’ll cost $3.7 billion if the challenge is cancelled.
