Four Virginia Businesses Receive Awards for Offshore Wind Power Research

Governor Terry McAuliffe announced that four Virginia businesses have been selected for awards totaling $860,000 for research having a total value of more than $3 million that will give the Commonwealth a competitive advantage and accelerate the development of offshore wind power and its associated industry supply chain.  

• Alstom Power Inc, a global industrial manufacturer with its North American Wind Power business headquartered in the metro Richmond area, offered $10,000 in contributed cost share and was selected for a $40,000 award to develop advanced controls that adjust ocean wind turbines to respond in real time to incoming waves, reducing wear and tear on the rotor and generator.
• CoastalObsTechServices LLC of Virginia Beach offered $310,000 in cost share contributions and was selected for a $260,000 award to perform a 12-month wave measurement project and wave forecast modeling and validation to help mitigate the risk of construction delays and service vessel inaccessibility.
• Timmons Group, a Richmond-based engineering and technology firm, offered to contribute $345,000 in cost share and was selected for a $250,000 award to develop a proof of concept for a commercial wide-area metocean and environmental monitoring program.
• Virginia Electric Power Company, dba Dominion Virginia Power, offered $2 million in cost share contribution and was selected for a $310,000 award to advance geotechnical studies, including deep borings, which are essential to early project engineering analysis and currently lacking on the Outer Continental Shelf in the vicinity of the Virginia Wind Energy Area. 

The four proposals were selected for first-round awards under a request for proposals that generated 20 responses for projects requesting a total of $4.83 million in DMME funding and which offered a total of $5.38 million in matching funds. The results from these research and development activities are expected to help lower costs and risks for commercial offshore wind power development.

In September 2013, Dominion Virginia Power won the commercial auction conducted by the U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) to develop wind power on just over 112,000 acres approximately 24 miles off Virginia’s coast. Wind power development in this area has the potential to produce enough electricity to power about 700,000 homes.