PROVIDENCE – State energy regulators have reopened the permitting process for transmission cables that would run up the Sakonnet River from an offshore wind farm proposed in the ocean waters south of Nantucket.
The state Energy Facility Siting Board’s decision to resume consideration of the application from SouthCoast Wind follows last month’s announcement that utilities in Rhode Island and Massachusetts were to enter contract negotiations to purchase power from the multibillion-dollar project planned by the company.
The decision comes more than a year after the siting boar d paused its deliberations on the transmission lines because SouthCoast Wind had moved to pull out of a set of long-term contracts it had previously signed with utilities in Massachusetts.
The company said that the war in Ukraine and inflation had pushed up the costs of construction and that the prices in the agreements wouldn’t allow its investors to make the profits they were promised.
But such agreements are essential to financing offshore wind projects because they lock in revenues for decades to come. The siting board ruled that with no contracts in place, there was no guarantee that the project would be financially viable, making the application for the transmission cables moot.