Clean Energy is Becoming our Next Economic Pillar in Hampton Roads

Matt Smith, Director of Energy and Emerging Technologies, Hampton Roads Alliance

Over a single week this spring, two signature events attracted the attention of the renewable energy industry worldwide to Hampton Roads.

One was the International Partnering Forum that brought hundreds of business leaders, academics and others to Virginia Beach to learn about the current status of offshore wind development here in the US and around the globe.

And while that was happening at the Convention Center, South Korean company L.S. Greenlink staged the groundbreaking for a $681 million submarine cable manufacturing facility along the southern branch of the Elizabeth River in Chesapeake, the largest industrial investment our region has seen in decades.

IPF and L.S. Greenlink represented great lifts for us at the Hampton Roads Alliance, which focuses on business attraction and expansion across our 15 localities. We devote significant “energy” to the need for more electricity generation in our area, a quest informed by the 2022 Virginia Energy Plan that called for on an “all of the above approach to include natural gas and renewables and the embrace of innovation and emerging technologies.” Three years later, the demand for abundant, affordable, clean energy has only grown.

Well out in the Atlantic, Dominion Energy is constructing the nation’s largest offshore wind farm, Costal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW). This “forward thinking” developer is demonstrating to its counterparts around the world that mega-scale wind projects can be built on time and on budget. Because the equipment for CVOW arrives from overseas at and then departs to the wind farm from the Virginia Port Authority’s vastly upgraded Portsmouth Marine Terminal, we can all see the scope of the effort from high rises in Norfolk or driving along the Western Freeway in Portsmouth.

Dominion is erecting a command center at Norfolk’s Fairwinds Landing where many of the vessels serving CVOW lease pier space. Our wind farm, and the cable plant, are remarkable undertakings, from engineering and environmental to communications and logistical perspectives. They are fostering new jobs, attracting international vendors and suppliers, and generating contracts for existing ones.

Offshore wind though is just one source of clean energy that we are pursuing. Advanced nuclear power is on our horizon, thanks to an ecosystem that features the Jefferson Lab research facility in Newport News, the Navy and Huntington Ingalls whose employees are known worldwide for their nuclear acumen, a host of state agencies and consortiums with whom we are collaborating that likewise understand that energy security and national security, our bread and butter here, are closely linked.

A major green hydrogen production plant, perhaps one of the nation’s biggest, may be in our future. We also work with our localities on siting solar farms and are always attuned to what’s next in emerging technologies. You should know that Virginia’s and Hampton Roads’ focus on energy is the envy of other states and regions. We understand that providing the power for our homes, schools and businesses is not only essential to the economic well-being of the region, but it is an industry that due to our strategic location along the Atlantic, our increasingly skilled workforce, educational institutions and maritime culture, we are uniquely positioned to host.