SouthCoast Wind has reached permitting process milestones for its first offshore wind project.
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts’s Energy Facilities Siting Board (EFSB) approved SouthCoast Wind’s request to construct and operate transmission facilities at Brayton Point in Somerset; the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection granted a Ch. 91 Waterways license for project-related nearshore equipment and work; and the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management signed off on the project’s Federal Consistency Review.
The project is slated to deliver its energy to the New England regional electric grid by 2030.
“These important permitting milestones bring our project closer to construction,” says Jennifer Flood, head of permitting for SouthCoast Wind and Ocean Winds North America.
“We are grateful to the commonwealth’s thorough review and look forward to providing clean power, good jobs and economic growth to the region.”
SouthCoast Wind’s offshore lease area is in federal waters 23 miles south of Nantucket. The proposed cable route runs through federal and Massachusetts state waters, Rhode Island’s Sakonnet River, across a portion of Portsmouth, R.I. and into Mt. Hope Bay.
The permit also approves a cable route that will go from Mt. Hope Bay, travel up the Lee River and enter Brayton Point in Somerset, Mass., close to the location of its planned converter station and electric grid connection.
The company was awarded PPAs with Massachusetts and Rhode Island to provide a total of 1,287 MW.
