Paul Murphy, a senior director with Orsted, discusses the assembly of offshore wind turbine components for the Revolution Wind project at ProvPort in June 2024. (Robert Zullo/ States Newsroom)
Rhode Island’s second attempt to grow its offshore wind portfolio proved successful.
Kind of.
The tentative contract announced Friday between Rhode Island, Massachusetts and developers of the SouthCoast Wind project will bring another 200 megawatts of wind-generated electricity to the Ocean State, providing enough electricity to power 125,000 homes if operating at full capacity.
Gov. Dan McKee in a statement lauded the award as a “historic milestone” that advances Rhode Island’s decarbonization goals.
But the tentative agreement represents just 16% of the amount of 1,200-megawatt maximum the state put out to bid.
“It’s certainly not as much as we had hoped for in Rhode Island,” said Amanda Barker, clean energy program coordinator for Green Energy Consumers Alliance.
And not for lack of choice.