An offshore wind company that got the cold shoulder from Virginia Beach officials last fall is back with new economic projections it’s hoping will turn the tide.
Avangrid Renewables has proposed the Kitty Hawk Offshore Wind Project off the coast of North Carolina’s Outer Banks, with a landing point in Sandbridge to bring the energy onshore. The project is going through the federal permitting process with a goal of being operational in the early 2030s. It would be built in two phases with a total of 176 wind turbines.
The company has faced opposition from Sandbridge residents who have concerns about the safety of the high voltage cables and the impact on their community. The Sandbridge Civic League voted against the project and some residents formed a coalition against it.
In November, City Manager Patrick Duhaney and Mayor Bobby Dyer told Avangrid officials there wasn’t support for the Sandbridge landing, given the amount of community pushback.
But the company isn’t backing down.
“We still feel like we have the opportunity to persuade them that this is in the best interest of the city and no one has told us otherwise,” said Ken Kimmell, Avangrid’s chief development officer.
Avangrid, which is currently developing the nation’s first large-scale offshore wind project off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, hired independent consultant Chmura Economics and Analytics to produce an economic impact study of the Kitty Hawk project. The report was released Thursday.
It analyzed the project’s fiscal impact in Virginia Beach, the rest of Hampton Roads and Virginia. In Virginia Beach alone, the total economic effect (direct, indirect, and induced) from spending on development, construction and operations is estimated to be $1.2 billion.
The study also concluded that the project will generate $270 million in real estate tax revenue for Virginia Beach over a 30-year time period from a transmission station that the company plans to build on city-owned land in Corporate Landing Business Park off General Booth Boulevard.
Kimmell is hoping the City Council will reconsider the project and explore potential benefits for the Sandbridge community.
“Because there will be some disruption and inconvenience to Sandbridge during the construction maybe there’s an argument to be made that that community should get priority for some of those revenue streams,” Kimmell said. “We’d love to have a conversation about how we could work together to try to ensure that, especially during the periods of time that there’s construction and thereafter.”
Avangrid has proposed bringing several underwater cables onshore under a Sandbridge parking lot, about 15 miles south of the Virginia Beach resort area. The company would then extend the cables underground in the public right-of-way along a route that borders dozens of residential areas and eventually connect to the substation.
The consultant’s report found that the total economic impact of the Kitty Hawk project in Virginia will be $4.8 billion and that it will support 12,000 jobs, including 9,500 in Hampton Roads over the entire course of the project. The jobs would include surveying and engineering, construction, maintenance and service.
The project will be able to generate up to 3,500 megawatts of electricity to power 1 million homes and businesses in Virginia and North Carolina, according to Avangrid, which will pay a lease fee to Virginia Beach of approximately $1 million for each of the two export cables.
Dominion Energy is preparing to build an offshore wind farm off the coast of Virginia Beach with a landing point in State Military Reservation, a military installation, just south of the resort area.
Avangrid has said North Carolina’s beaches aren’t stable for a landing site due to erosion and lack sufficient transmission infrastructure. Sandbridge is the company’s preference because it’s the shortest of the northern cable routes and doesn’t cross any existing submarine cables, according to the company.
Kimmell also said Virginia is ripe for another landing site in order to create a “cluster” of high level manufacturing companies that will support a robust workforce.
“If you look at Virginia’s maritime assets and its business-friendly climate, it’s ready to be the mid-Atlantic cluster, but it needs more than one project to do it,” he said.
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