June 11, 2026 — The murky future for SouthCoast Wind gained a small but significant sign of clarity Tuesday with a key permit approval from the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC).
The panel’s unanimous vote — the first decision made by the newly retooled council —- followed a four-hour series of expert presentations and public comments on the impacts of the underwater cable lines in Rhode Island waters. The center of the project — 141 turbines generating more than 1,200 megawatts of wind-powered electricity at nameplate capacity — sits more than 60 miles south of Rhode Island’s coastline, closer to Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. But project developers needed permission from Ocean State regulators to run power lines from the turbines to the electric grid, snaking up the Sakonnet River, underneath Island Park in Portsmouth and out Mount Hope Bay to reach land at Brayton Point in Somerset, Massachusetts.
When and whether the high-voltage cables ever come through Rhode Island remains unclear; SouthCoast is one of many offshore wind projects facing unforeseen setbacks since President Donald Trump took office in January 2026. The developer hasn’t lined up a buyer for its product, though Massachusetts power providers are expected to announce a decision on a potential deal by the end of the month. Rhode Island Energy was initially interested in procuring a small piece of the project power, too, but broke off contract negotiations after multiple delays, citing federal policy uncertainty.
Federal regulators with the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management have also revoked a key federal permit tied to the project and are still reviewing whether to reissue the permit with new conditions — if at all.
Fishermen, municipalities and conservative-funded interest groups noted the federal uncertainty in 90 pages of opposition letters to coastal regulators. Far more pressing for critics, however, was the potential environmental harms to native species and habitats where the developer wants to drill and bury the power lines, and the commercial and recreational fishing community that depends on those habitats.