THE ITALIAN COMPANY seeking to build a cable manufacturing plant at Brayton Point in Somerset, Massachusetts, pulled the plug on the $300 million project Friday, dealing a major blow to offshore wind development on the East Coast as well as the economic prospects of the small South Coast town.
The Prysmian Group spent nearly three years obtaining all the necessary state and local permits, including beating back a regulatory challenge brought by a handful of neighbors of Brayton Point. But ultimately the company decided to walk away from the project just days before Donald Trump, who has vowed to shut down the offshore wind industry in the United States, takes office.
Trump’s hardline stance on offshore wind is also reverberating in ongoing contract talks between Massachusetts utilities and two offshore wind developers – Avangrid and Ocean Winds. With Trump’s inauguration creating a great deal of uncertainty about the future of offshore wind, the two sides revealed this week that they need more time to reach a deal. Instead of releasing the contracts in February, the deadline has now been pushed back to May.
The deteriorating situation is raising questions about the state’s efforts to make offshore wind the centerpiece of a climate change policy that hinges on electrifying homes and vehicles using carbon-free power. Gov. Maura Healey went all in on offshore wind in a procurement that concluded in September, but that strategy is now in jeopardy as Trump threatens to shut the industry down and impose tariffs on imported products and materials.
Prysmian did not mention Trump in a statement confirming its decision to not exercise an option to purchase land at Brayton Point. The company chalked the decision up to its efforts to align capacity to produce subsea cable with demand for its product.
“As a result of the consideration, including the strong growth opportunities in the US and global cable markets, Prysmian has decided to not proceed with the purchase of the land in Somerset, and therefore will not proceed with the Brayton Point project,” the statement said. “We would like to share our appreciation for the support that we received from the state and local leaders as well as the residents of Somerset while we worked on this project.”
Somerset has been reeling financially ever since two power plants in the community shut down. The Prysmian plant offered the promise of more than 100 jobs and tax revenues that over time were expected to amount to between $8 million and $15 million a year, according to Jamison Souza, the chair of the Somerset Select Board.
“This brings us back to the drawing board. It’s a major blow,” Souza said. “We’re scraping. We’re down to bare bones.”
The St. Louis-based owner of Brayton Point bought the property in 2018 and subsequently imploded and tore down the massive coal-fired power plant there. The firm’s goal was to replace the coal plant with businesses associated with the emerging offshore wind industry, but that plan was put on hold when Trump’s first administration slowed approvals of wind farms to a snail’s pace.
With the vast property sitting empty, the company leased a portion of the space to a company shipping scrapped metal to Turkey. The noise and dust caused by the scrap metal operations angered neighbors of Brayton Point, and prompted a years-long battle to shut the facility down that ended when a state judge sided with the neighbors.
Prysmian signed a deal in 2022 to buy space at Brayton Point for its plant, a move that attracted the attention of President Biden, who came to Somerset to celebrate the community’s shift to renewable energy. “Brayton Point is on the frontier of clean energy in America,” Biden proclaimed.
Now, with Biden stepping down to make way for Trump, the town is going to be forced to start over again.
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