A US federal judge has denied a request to stop the construction of Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project in Virginia Beach. The groups, which included the Heartland Institute and the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, filed a lawsuit in federal court in March against several US agencies, most notably the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. The groups claimed that the government “illegally approved Dominion Energy’s offshore wind project by ignoring glaring and obvious procedural errors that subject the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale to further grave harm.” Dominion Energy immediately claimed that the issues raised in the lawsuit had no merit. Regardless of this decision, the lawsuit will still happen during autumn but the construction of the CVOW project will continue as scheduled while the lawsuit is in court. According to the decision made by the district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Loren AliKhan, the plaintiffs did not take into account the extensive measures already in place to minimize potential harm to the North Atlantic Right Whales during the construction of the wind farm and that the request did not explain why these measures would not be sufficient. The CVOW project is set to include 176 turbines some 45 km off the coast. Dominion Energy claims that the 2.6GW offshore wind project would produce enough energy to power up to 660,000 homes. Upon its completion, set in 2026, it should be the largest commercial offshore wind farm in the US. Dominion was given the green light to start construction of the project earlier this month and the first monopile was set in place by DEME’s Orion vessel last week – just days before the judge’s ruling. googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1_95_0_1_2'); }); TagsOffshore Wind United States