Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, the Virginia offshore wind farm, delivered first power in March 2026 but full completion has slipped to early 2027

The Virginia offshore wind farm delivered first power but full completion has moved again

The Virginia offshore wind farm that Dominion Energy calls Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind delivered its first power to the electric grid on March 23, 2026, from a single 14.7 megawatt turbine, Utility Dive reports. A megawatt is a unit of electric power. The finished project is rated at 2.6 gigawatts, equal to 2,600 megawatts, enough at peak output to power up to 660,000 homes, Dominion Energy says. Federal regulators approved the project on January 28, 2024 to build up to 176 turbines and 3 offshore substations. Full completion was once expected by late 2026. Dominion Energy now says the project remains on the way to full completion early in 2027, not late 2026.

A 90 day suspension order that ended one day before first power arrived

The delay traces to a federal order. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the federal regulator overseeing the project, ordered a 90 day suspension of all ongoing activities on December 22, 2025, citing reasons of national security, its own record states. Ninety days after that date lands around March 22, 2026, one day before the project actually delivered first power. Neither the regulator nor Dominion Energy states the 2 dates are connected, but reading the 2 records together shows how close they land. Utility Dive reports the project still faces a pressure campaign from the presidential administration, and a separate limit through PJM Interconnection, the regional grid operator, that could cap how much of the power the project generates actually reaches customers until network upgrades finish.

We ask PJM to do an interim deliverability study to determine if there are going to be any limits on the project's ability to deliver its full output.

Bob Blue, Dominion Energy chair, president and chief executive. Source 5.

Foundations are not finished turbines

By October 9, 2025, all 176 turbine foundations were installed, Canary Media reports. A foundation is the steel monopile and transition piece a turbine stands on, an earlier and separate step from erecting the turbine itself, the tower, the generator housing called the nacelle, and the blades, on top of it. The project page Dominion Energy maintains describes only 2 turbines as actually generating power today. The 176 count and the 2 count are not a contradiction. They measure 2 different stages of the same project.

Jobs in Hampton Roads and jobs nationwide are two different counts

The project supports 802 full and part time jobs in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia, G.T. Hollett, the director of offshore wind at Dominion Energy, says. Separately, Dominion Energy states the project has created 2,000 direct and indirect jobs nationwide and generated 2 billion dollars in economic activity.

The project has already created 2,000 direct and indirect American jobs and generated 2 billion dollars in economic activity, strengthening the nation's manufacturing supply chains and our regional economy.

Katharine Kollins, president of the Southeastern Wind Coalition. Source 4.

The project costs 10.7 billion dollars, not the 6 billion dollars already spent

Dominion Energy spent 6 billion dollars building the project as of October 2025, Canary Media reports, a figure describing spending to date, not the total cost. The real total, stated in its own February 2025 update, is 10.7 billion dollars, up from an original 9.8 billion dollar budget, an increase of about 9%. A Virginia state cost cap limits customer charges to 10.3 billion dollars of that total. Dominion Energy also reports an unused construction contingency of 222 million dollars, and says the project will raise a typical residential bill by 43 cents a month over its life.