Judge’s ruling allows Dominion Energy to resume construction of CVOW

The Trump Administration’s latest efforts to cripple the U.S. offshore wind industry have met their third legal set back in the course of a week. Today the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia granted Dominion Energy’s request for a preliminary injunction allowing construction to resume on the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project while Dominion Energy’s lawsuit challenging the agency’s action proceeds.

That came after similar preliminary injunctions had been granted Ørsted and Equinor earlier this week

Reuters reports that Judge Jamar Walker said that the Department of the Interior’s stop-work order was too broad to address Dominion’s specific project and noted that the risks cited by the government pertained to wind farm operations and not construction.

“Our team will now focus on safely restarting work to ensure CVOW begins delivery of critical energy in just weeks,” said Dominion Energy. “While our legal challenge proceeds, we will continue seeking a durable resolution of this matter through cooperation with the federal government.”

When completed, CVOW will be the largest offshore wind farm in the U.S. in terms of planned capacity. It will consist of 176 offshore wind energy turbines generating a total of 2.6-gigawatts — enough energy to power up to 660,000 homes. CVOW is a critical part of Dominion Energy’s all-of-the-above diverse energy supply strategy to meet its region’s growing demand.

“Today’s ruling in Virginia marks the third time in a row that a court has allowed one of the five offshore wind projects suspended in December to resume construction,” said Hillary Bright, executive director of Turn Forward, an independent, nonprofit organization advocating for offshore wind. “This is good news for stressed power grids on the East Coast — and also for the ratepayers who will ultimately benefit once these projects are completed.”

“Each project suspended by the U.S. government could provide enough power for hundreds of thousands of American homes. At a time of rapidly growing electricity demand, the potential impact on our power supplies is enormous. Yet the reverse is also true — if these projects are not allowed to advance, stressed grids along the populous East coast are more likely to experience reliability issues and see ratepayer bills soar.

“The Administration wants power-hungry AI to help fuel economic growth and also seeks to solve household affordability issues. Offshore wind aligns with both those goals, bringing utility-scale power to busy coastal regions and shoring up electricity grids gradually growing overtaxed by demand.

“With two more projects still stalled over undefined claims regarding national security — and those allowed to proceed still in litigation — we hope the Administration soon comes to understand the immense benefits that these nearly complete power sources can bring to our nation’s energy and national security.”

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