Help Wanted!

Now here's an interesting twist...  Dominion Virginia Energy wants the public's "advice" in siting its new transmission connection to its new offshore wind farm in the Virginia Beach area.

Dominion Energy Virginia is seeking public feedback and advice about linking its planned wind farm, 27 miles off the Virginia Beach shore, to the 500 kilovolt backbone of its statewide power grid at the Fentress substation on Centerville Turnpike in Chesapeake.

Bravo for taking suggestion, Dominion!  Communities burdened by new transmission will absolutely, positively rebel against a fait accompli transmission proposal.

Is there a "good" way to present a transmission line proposal to the public?  Not if you're approaching the communities with a fully-formed idea of what you're going to build and where you're going to put it.  The only good way to involve a community in a transmission proposal is to approach them with a need before making decisions about what to build and where.  Presenting a community with a problem to be solved and allowing meaningful input into the solution selected is the only way a transmission company can get community buy-in and support for the proposal.  Everything else is nothing more than a battle to push a bad idea the community doesn't want off onto someone else.

But Duh-minion only gets it half right... no,  maybe even less than that.  They simply use the *idea* that they are seeking community advice in an attempt to trick the community into thinking they are involved in solving a problem.  When all the window dressing is removed, this is nothing more than your routine transmission siting exercise. 

Dominion has already selected 6 routes.  The community gets to pick its favorite.  Are you kidding me?  That's not how it works and it's not going to fool anyone.  Dominion would have done better to ask for help connecting its offshore wind farm and left the siting options hidden for the time being.  Must be a control issue.  Dominion can't stand not having complete control.

The power company has part of the route nailed down: the 27 miles of underwater cable to a landing point at the state military reservation at Camp Pendleton. It also has proposed an underground route through the southernmost reaches of Naval Air Station Oceana, to comply with regulations restricting structures near airfields, which the Navy must still review.

Its research into what’s on the ground, in terms of neighborhoods, wetlands, wildlife and historic resources has led it to six options for the final roughly 15 miles to the Fentress station.

“We can look at maps and desktop it, but it’s not until we talk to people that we’ll really understand these alternatives,” said Kevin Curtis, Dominion’s vice president, electric transmission.

Guess what alternative they're going to get from the community?  Bury it.  All of it.  On existing rights of way.  Without that alternative, opposition begins.  Why?  Because burial is already an option for portions of the route, such as the path through the air station.  If Dominion can bury it under the ocean, and through the air station, then it can bury it the entire length.

One option for one of these routes would be to bury the lines for a stretch. That could create much more disruption during construction and mean they were costlier to install and repair than running lines overhead but would mean that portion of the lines would not be visible.

Oh, please!  These are transparent excuses that don't even make sense.  Too disruptive... as if having 3 separate overhead 230-kV lines in parallel isn't disruptive at all.  One time disruption to bury the project?  Or 50 years of disruption from an overhead line?  Installing a buried transmission line isn't really that disruptive.  They do it on streets all the time.  It's a shallow, narrow trench, not a whole lot different than fiber optic cable installation.  Costlier to install?  Maybe, but cheaper to maintain, especially in a coastal area subject to extreme weather.  Dominion's excuses are plainly excuses and completely illogical in the face of their plans to bury it at the air station and along a portion of one of the route alternatives.

With this kind of deceptive roll out, Dominion is doomed.  Why?

Five routes would run along the never-built Southeast Parkway, now an open space corridor through the most densely populated neighborhoods between Oceana and an area southwest of Princess Anne Road, between the Virginia Beach National Golf Course and the Princess Anne Athletic Complex.

Two words... densely populated.  It's over before it begins when Dominion ham-hands its rollout like this.

Help wanted?  Not hardly... unless the "help" Dominion is looking for consists of wildfire opposition leading to an entrenched battle.

Well, there goes that offshore wind idea.