Virginia utility wins rights for offshore wind farm — will take 10 years before first windmill installed

The WaPo reports:

Virginia Dominion Power submitted a successful $1.6 million bid Wednesday to lease nearly 113,000 offshore acres for the development of wind turbines that could power 700,000 homes.

Virginia’s largest utility beat out one other bidder, Apex Virginia Offshore Wind LLC of Charlottesville, in the nation’s second lease sale of ocean bottom dedicated to the development of huge wind turbines. Eight energy companies were qualified to bid on the Virginia lease.

The U.S. Justice Department will conduct an antitrust review before the lease is officially in place. That is expected to take 30 days. The company will then have six months to submit a site assessment plan for the 112,800-acre area, which has the potential to generate 2,000 megawatts of electricity.

“This is a major milestone getting leases in the hands of operators we believe are in a position to do something with the leases and stand up wind generation facilities, but a lot of work needs to be done on an entire range of issues,” said Tommy P. Beaudreau, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which conducted the auction.

Dominion said it expects it will be a decade before the first turbine is installed in the area, about 23.5 miles off Virginia Beach on the outer continental shelf.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/us-dominion-virginia-power-top-bidder-at-16-million-for-offshore-wind-development-lease/2013/09/04/7e699980-15ae-11e3-961c-f22d3aaf19ab_story.html