Rush Job: SouthCoast Wind project approved

On the last business day of the Biden administration, a federal agency announced its approval of the construction and operations plan for a big offshore wind project.

“We are proud to announce BOEM’s final approval of the SouthCoast Wind project, the nation’s eleventh commercial-scale offshore wind energy project, which will power more than 840,000 homes,” U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Director Elizabeth Klein said in a statement.

In September, Massachusetts selected 1,087 megawatts of power from the 1,287 MW SouthCoast Wind project, with the remaining 200 MW going to Rhode Island.

The project will be located about 26 nautical miles south of Martha’s Vineyard and 20 nautical miles south of Nantucket, an area where developers with federal leases are planning to set up major industrial operations.

The approved project includes the construction of up to 141 wind turbines, up to five substation platforms, and up to eight offshore export cables located in corridors that could make landfall in Brayton Point or Falmouth.

Owned by OW Ocean Winds, the SouthCoast Wind project was previously selected by Massachusetts but the developer canceled the contract amid escalating costs. The developer has pledged to allocate $93 million to initiatives like local workforce development, fisheries and marine science research, environmental justice, and ratepayer support. Project officials estimate power could flow from the project onto the grid in 2030.

Utility officials in Massachusetts this week notified state regulators that project contract negotiations with SouthCoast Wind and another offshore project did not lead to executed contracts by a Jan. 15 deadline, and the execution of the contracts is now expected by March 31.

Rep. Justin Thurber of Somerset told the Fall River Reporter on Friday that Italian company Prysmian Cable Manufacturing “will not be building the Offshore Wind cable plant on Brayton Point.” The company announced plans in connection with an ultimately unsuccessful wind farm bid to build a subsea transmission cable manufacturing plant on land in Somerset that last decade hosted a coal-burning power plant.

State officials have for years celebrated Prysmian’s commitment as a sign that offshore wind was gaining a foothold in the U.S. and especially in Massachusetts.

President-elect Donald Trump, an offshore wind opponent and fossil fuels power production advocate, is set to be sworn in on Monday and has forecast his own plans to put the squeeze on offshore wind energy. There’s an ongoing debate over potentially different impacts on projects with permits, versus those still in the pipeline.

Vineyard Wind 1, an offshore power project that started generating electricity in early 2024, remains a work in progress. It was shut down last summer after a blade shattered but has resumed construction operations.

After requests dating back to December about whether the project is generating power again, a Vineyard Wind 1 spokesman said late Friday that power is being generated again, by a single turbine.