The Virginia Port Authority announced this week that workers have wrapped up a hub for offshore wind equipment at the Portsmouth Marine Terminal.
Skanska began construction in 2022, working to redevelop 72 acres and 1,500 feet of an existing wharf.
“The project presented some challenges,” Stephen Edwards, CEO of the Port Authority, said in a statement Thursday. “But there was a lot of collaboration between the port and Skanska teams that yielded a project, an outcome, that was delivered on-time and on-budget.”
The $223 million project provides capacity for Dominion Energy to gather, store and transfer massive turbines and foundations for its 176-turbine wind farm about 27 miles off the Virginia Beach coast. The turbines are expected to generate 2.6 gigawatts of renewable electricity.
The Port Authority received a $20 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation for the area under the Biden administration.
In a joint statement at the time, Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine said the funding “will go a long way toward establishing Virginia as a hub for offshore wind development along the East Coast.”
President Donald Trump has now vowed to put a halt on the offshore wind industry, including directing federal officials to review existing permits and leases for wind projects.
But Dominion leadership said they’re confident the Virginia Beach project will be completed on time in late 2026. The utility also holds two other federal offshore wind lease sites, one directly next to the existing site and another off the Outer Banks, which are not yet permitted.
Work to transform the Portsmouth site into a staging area included constructing three heavy-lift berths where wind turbines and monopiles are delivered and then loaded out.
Each steel cylinder foundation is designed for a very specific depth based on its exact coordinates, with some stretching 272 feet long to connect the turbine with the ocean floor, according to Dominion.
The 1,500-ton monopiles are then loaded onto a specialized, 700-foot-long vessel called the Orion, which features a flat base and massive crane to lift and lower them.
Skanska also strengthened soil at the marine terminal to accommodate heavy equipment, poured 26,500 cubic yards of concrete and installed high mast lighting and stormwater collection systems.
The project does not include a $200 million blade manufacturing facility originally announced for the site.
Siemens Gamesa, a Spanish-German subsidiary of Siemens Energy that is the world’s largest maker of offshore wind turbines, had planned to build the United States’ first such factory at the marine terminal. The company announced in 2023 that it was pulling the plug, saying “development milestones to establish the facility could not be met.”
Dominion drilled 78 turbine foundations into the seabed last year and plans to start on the rest this spring. The company can only install foundations from May through October, when endangered whales are least likely to pass through.
