Avangrid opens offshore wind office in Virginia

Avangrid Renewables, the developer of the Kitty Hawk offshore wind project, has opened a new Virginia field office to support project development and help ignite a new industry off the coast of Virginia and North Carolina.

Kitty Hawk is a proposed offshore wind energy project to be built approximately 27 miles from the Outer Banks in the Kitty Hawk Wind Energy Area (WEA), designated by the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM).

The commercial lease for the 122,405-acre WEA was awarded to Avangrid Renewables by BOEM in 2017.

Since then, the company has been studying the area in detail, most recently launching an advanced meteorological buoy in July 2020.

The new office in Virginia Beach will welcome members of the growing Kitty Hawk project development team who have been working in the region to facilitate ongoing site assessment activity, local stakeholder meetings, and community outreach.

“Offshore wind will play a key role in Virginia’s clean energy economy for decades to come,” said Bobby Dyer, Mayor of Virginia Beach.

“We are very excited to have Avangrid Renewables building that future here in Virginia Beach with the Kitty Hawk Offshore Wind project.”

Once complete, Kitty Hawk Offshore Wind is projected to have a generation capacity of up to 2,500 megawatts, or enough to power approximately 700,000 homes.

The construction and operation of the project are expected to create hundreds of jobs and represent hundreds of millions of dollars of direct investment in Virginia and Hampton Roads.