Rhode Island
Mandate Without a Price Tag: Rhode Island Energy’s Maine Wind Deal Leaves Ratepayers Guessing
What happened
On or around Sept. 9–11, 2026, Rhode Island Energy announced it was conditionally awarded—or had tentatively agreed to buy—150 megawatts of onshore wind power from Clearway Energy Group’s proposed roughly 800-megawatt project in Aroostook County, Maine. After a series of failed attempts to lock in more offshore wind, the utility turned landward.
The deal is not final. Coverage makes clear it remains subject to pricing negotiations and approval by the Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission. Rhode Island Current reported that a timeline for finalizing a contract and submitting pricing to the PUC was not immediately available—and the ratepayer price itself has not been disclosed in the reporting.
Rhode Island Energy framed the procurement as advancing the state’s 2021 Act on Climate mandates. The utility said the 150 MW would generate enough electricity to power about 73,000 homes. Maine has tentatively agreed to buy about 600 MW from the same project, leaving the rest of the capacity for other buyers.
The wind farm cannot deliver power to New England without new wires. Aroostook County is not connected to the ISO-NE grid today. Maine regulators have backed a new 100-plus-mile, 1,200-megawatt transmission line (Avangrid) to link northern Maine to the regional system. The broader effort has involved Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, and Rhode Island in a regional competitive procurement; Maine’s share of transmission costs has been reported as less than about 11%, with other states absorbing the rest. Rhode Island’s exact dollar share of that cost-shift has not been disclosed in the coverage we reviewed.
Original reporting
Read the underlying articles:
Virtue Forge commentary
Central planning loves mandates. Markets demand a price. Rhode Island’s Act on Climate pushes utilities to procure “clean” megawatts on a political timetable—then the utility announces a conditional PPA and calls the future “affordable” while the actual power-purchase price is still being negotiated in private and kept out of the press release. That is not humble, competent governance. That is locking ratepayers into a mandate-driven deal before showing them the bill.
Free enterprise can build energy infrastructure when developers compete on cost and customers can see the tradeoffs. Mandate-first procurement plus cost-shifted transmission plus secret PPA pricing is the opposite: opacity dressed up as decarbonization. Rhode Islanders deserve the sticker price before regulators bless another multi-decade obligation.
Humble government would publish the negotiated rate, the transmission cost allocation for Rhode Island, and a clear comparison to alternatives—then ask the PUC to approve in daylight. Until then, “affordable” is a press talking point, not a fact.