For decades, energy has been infrastructure in Hampton Roads — something required to power the ships, military installations, manufacturers, ports and businesses that drive the regional economy.
Increasingly, the region is starting to look at energy differently.
Not just as something those industries need.
As an industry itself.
The Dominion Energy Innovation Center has received $154,391 in GO Virginia funding for a new initiative aimed at identifying where eastern Virginia can compete in advanced electrical power systems, grid technologies and the supply chains growing around them.
Called Strategic Cluster Advancement for Leading Energy — or SCALE — the project connects Greater Richmond, the “Tri-Cities” and Hampton Roads in an effort to determine what an advanced energy cluster spanning the regions could actually look like.
The funding will support a market and feasibility study, energy-focused soft landing sites at DEIC and the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center’s Secure Energy Future Center, and a new Energy Growth Council bringing together utilities, economic developers, investors, suppliers and other industry leaders.
While the dollar amount may seem relatively small, the necessity behind it isn’t.
As every industry in Hampton Roads seeks to grow, it will require more power. In doing so, the region can also become one of the places building the technology necessary to deliver it,
That question has been surfacing across Hampton Roads throughout 2026.
At Innovate Hampton Roads’ State of Innovation Address this spring, Chelsea Jenkins Olivieri of the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center’s Secure Energy Future Center argued that energy was becoming much more than another operating expense for businesses.
“Energy is not just a line item, it’s a gating factor for growth,” she said.
Her argument was straightforward: artificial intelligence, manufacturing, defense, logistics and everyday quality of life all depend on a power system being asked to do considerably more than it was originally designed to handle.
And regions are increasingly competing on their ability to deliver that power quickly, reliably and affordably.
For Hampton Roads, Olivieri saw an opportunity inside the challenge.
The region already has an unusual collection of energy-related assets, including offshore wind development, long-standing nuclear infrastructure, relatively low-cost natural gas, one of the country’s largest concentrations of defense infrastructure, a major international port and energy-intensive industrial operations.
Her challenge at the time was bigger than simply keeping the lights on.
“What if Hampton Roads became a global gateway for energy, for secure energy?” she asked.
That would mean creating a place where new energy technologies could be tested in real-world environments, defense installations could serve as laboratories for resilience, the port could support emerging energy technologies and companies could come to Hampton Roads knowing they could reach the market faster.
Four months later, SCALE begins putting some structure around that idea.
It is also consistent with a broader shift in how Hampton Roads is approaching economic development.
The Hampton Roads Playbook concentrates regional growth efforts around four industries: defense, energy, aerospace and logistics. Its strategy is to build around areas where the region already possesses meaningful assets rather than chase industries disconnected from its existing advantages.
There are already examples of what building around energy could look like.
At the founder level, Hampton-based HerculE-Q is developing wireless charging and energy infrastructure technology for electric mobility — one example of energy technology being developed inside the region rather than simply imported into it.
At industrial scale, the numbers become much larger.
LS Cable & System recently announced a $689 million investment in Chesapeake expected to create more than 430 jobs, a project separate from but building upon the company’s previously announced LS GreenLink subsea cable manufacturing and pier facility.
State economic development officials described the new investment as the largest single capital investment announcement in Hampton Roads history.
Together, the projects expand the region’s role in energy infrastructure, advanced manufacturing and domestic energy supply chains.
That is important context for SCALE.
The region isn’t beginning with a blank sheet of paper and asking whether energy might someday become an economic opportunity.
Pieces of that economy are already appearing.
The question is whether those pieces can become something more intentional.
Virginia’s broader competitive position adds another layer.
The Commonwealth climbed to No. 3 in CNBC’s 2026 Top States for Business ranking, including a No. 2 national ranking for infrastructure. Infrastructure was CNBC’s most heavily weighted category this year, with the evaluation expanded to consider transportation, energy, water and communications systems that businesses depend on.
Hampton Roads contributes directly to that advantage through its port, transportation network, defense assets, industrial base and increasingly its energy infrastructure.
But possessing infrastructure and building an industry around it are two different things.
SCALE is intended to help determine where those existing advantages can translate into something more deliberate.
Hampton Roads Alliance Director of Energy and Emerging Technology Matt Smith said the project should help the region better understand its opportunities, existing assets and which industry sectors it should target.
“As we lean into energy as one of our regional priorities, it’s critical to understand where to focus our efforts,” Smith said.
That last piece may ultimately be the most important.
There is a significant difference between saying energy is important and deciding which parts of the energy economy Hampton Roads can actually win.
Advanced electrical equipment.
Grid technology.
Power components.
Energy storage.
Resilience technology.
Companies developing products utilities and industrial customers increasingly need.
SCALE is designed to begin narrowing the field.
It also brings one particularly important participant into that conversation: the customer.
Dominion Energy Vice President of New Business and Customer Solutions Nate Frost said the utility needs greater access to innovative advanced-power-system products and services.
“As a significant buyer of advanced power systems components, it is critical for Dominion Energy to have ready access to innovative products and services,” Frost said.
By participating in the Energy Growth Council, Dominion can communicate what it needs while gaining visibility into emerging technologies.
That creates an opportunity beyond traditional economic development.
Instead of entrepreneurs developing energy technology in isolation, manufacturers making investment decisions independently and utilities searching elsewhere for solutions, the region could potentially create tighter connections among the companies inventing technology, the manufacturers capable of producing it, the organizations helping those businesses grow and the customers capable of deploying it.
That is the cluster SCALE is beginning to explore.
None of it is guaranteed.
The $154,391 isn’t building an energy economy. SCALE is preliminary work — research, infrastructure and relationships intended to determine where the strongest opportunities actually exist.
But that may be precisely why the project matters now.
Hampton Roads has already identified energy as a regional priority.
It has opened the Secure Energy Future Center around it.
Entrepreneurs are building companies around it.
LS Cable & System is investing hundreds of millions of dollars into manufacturing tied directly to energy infrastructure.
And regional leaders increasingly see access to reliable power as a prerequisite for growth across nearly every other industry they want to expand.
The pieces are beginning to connect.
Now comes the harder question.
Can Hampton Roads turn the energy required to power its economy into an economy of its own?
