Biden administration approves largest offshore wind project in the US

The Biden administration has approved what is expected to be the nation’s largest offshore wind farm yet, it announced Tuesday.

The Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project — located 23.5 nautical miles off the coast of Virginia Beach — marks the fifth commercial-scale, offshore wind project approved in the U.S.

All five projects were OK’d under the Biden administration, though smaller projects had been approved prior.

The approvals come as part of a larger Biden goal to generate enough electricity via offshore wind to power 10 million American homes by 2030, as part of its efforts to fight climate change.

The Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project is expected to be capable of powering hundreds of thousands of homes. 

The Interior Department put the figure at about 900,000 homes, while electric company Dominion Energy, which owns the project, estimated the figure to be 660,000 homes. 

The project is expected to contain as many as 176 wind turbines.

“Today’s approval of the largest offshore wind project in U.S. history builds on the undeniable momentum we are seeing,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a written statement. 

“Together with the labor community, industry, Tribes and partners from coast to coast, we are aggressively working toward our clean energy goals,” she added.   

Dominion spokesperson Jeremy Slayton attributed the discrepancy in how many homes could be powered by the project to different methodologies.

Tracey Blythe Moriarty, spokesperson for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said that the federal government used a general calculation of 350 homes per megawatt in its estimate — meaning the project’s 2,600 megawatts would be expected to power about 900,000 homes.

This story was updated at 6:02 p.m.