Dominion launches Virginia offshore wind farm

This roundup of energy news headlines comes from our Southeast Energy News newsletter. Sign up to get it in your inbox each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning.

WIND

• Dominion Energy begins sending power to the grid from its first commercial turbine at its Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, which is eventually projected to produce 2.6 GW of energy. (WHRO, Virginia Mercury)

• Democratic senators are not yet pulling out of permitting reform talks despite the Trump administration’s move to pay TotalEnergies $1 billion to forfeit its offshore wind leases off the coasts of North Carolina and New York and instead pursue new fossil fuel projects on the Gulf Coast. (E&E News, Canary Media)

• The split-screen of Dominion Energy beginning operation of its new wind farm near Virginia while Trump moves to block new projects on the East Coast captures the tumultuous state of the offshore wind industry. (E&E News)

NUCLEAR

• Kentucky and West Virginia are among five states that have fully lifted their moratoria on nuclear energy plants after restricting their construction for decades. (Canary Media)

FOSSIL FUELS

• Valero prepares to restart a Texas refinery after an explosion and fire led to a temporary shutdown and a shelter-in-place order for nearby residents. (Reuters, Associated Press)

• NextEra Energy agrees to develop a 5.2 GW gas generation hub in Texas as part of a trade deal with Japan that will also lead to new gas development in Ohio and Pennsylvania and 3 GW of nuclear reactors in Alabama and Tennessee. (Utility Dive)

• Despite urging by the Trump administration, Texas oil companies hesitate to respond to a spike in oil prices due to the U.S. war in Iran because of industry consolidation, a focus on longer-term goals, and because the price hike has been too sudden and volatile to convince companies to drill more wells. (Politico, Inside Climate News)

SOLAR

• Spanish company Zelestra closes financing on a deal to fund construction of 253 MW and 187 MW solar farms in Texas that will provide power to Meta. (Renewables Now)

GRID

• Virginia lawmakers ask state regulators to consider burying high-voltage transmission lines after the legislature passed bills to launch a pilot program for the project. (Virginia Mercury)

• West Virginia regulators announce they’ll make a decision by next year on NextEra Energy’s proposed 107.5-mile, 500 kV transmission line through the state, which an energy think tank projects will cost ratepayers $570 million even though they’ll receive no benefits from it. (WV Metro News, Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis)

OVERSIGHT

• Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger creates a new ​“chief energy officer” position in her cabinet and appoints an environmental lawyer to fill it. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

DATA CENTERS

• Texas’ massive swaths of open land, easy availability of natural gas, and deregulated power grid is attracting data center developers like Pacifico Energy, which wants to build a private grid roughly the size of Ireland’s to support its projects. (Houston Chronicle)

• Duke Energy disagrees with energy experts over whether rising bills have been driven by weather or by data centers. (WHRO)

NEW FROM CANARY

• What’s next for Ohio’s former green steel project? More coal, it seems. — Maria Gallucci & Kathiann M. Kowalski

• Ohio blocks big solar farm, despite apparently fake public comments — Kathiann M. Kowalski

• ‘We’re harvesting the sun’: A huge solar project grows in California — Jeff St. John

• XPrize competition to drive innovation for next-gen geothermal plants — Maria Gallucci