An offshore wind farm in the North Sea. Photo courtesy of Harald Pettersen/Statoil/CC BY-2.0

Vineyard Wind, the $2.8 billion, 800 megawatt wind power project planned for the waters off Martha’s Vineyard, has been delayed and will not move forward on the timeline it has been anticipating due to a federal agency’s decision to undertake a broad study of the potential impacts of offshore wind projects planned up and down the coast.

The decision of the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to launch a “cumulative impacts analysis” and hold up the approval of a key permit for Vineyard Wind until that analysis is complete will likely upend the supply chain, financing and construction timeline for the project chosen by the Baker administration and state utility companies to fulfill part of a 2016 clean energy law.

Despite what is likely to be significant disruption to the project’s current plans, Vineyard Wind officials were adamant Friday that the development remains workable and will move forward on a new, yet-to-be-determined, timeline.

“To be clear, the Vineyard Wind 1 project remains viable and continues to move forward,” officials said.

The project has been on unsteady ground in recent weeks after the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management notified project officials that the government was “not yet prepared” to issue a final environmental impact statement, which had been expected in July.

On Friday, BOEM said it had received comments from stakeholders and other federal agencies requesting “a more robust cumulative analysis” and decided to launch a more comprehensive look at offshore wind projects after federal officials “determined that a greater build out of offshore wind capacity is reasonably foreseeable than was analyzed in the initial draft EIS” for Vineyard Wind.

Vineyard Wind officials implored the federal government to wrap up its additional review as quickly as possible to allow the landmark project to advance. BOEM gave no timeline for its review.

“While we appreciate that the discussion on cumulative impacts is driven by rapid growth of the industry beyond our project, we urge the federal government to complete the review of Vineyard Wind 1 as quickly as possible,” a statement issued Vineyard Wind read. “The project is poised to kickstart a new offshore wind industry that promises industrial growth along with new manufacturing and blue-collar employment across the United States from New England to Louisiana to Colorado and beyond.”

The new delay for Vineyard Wind raises the question of whether the project will still qualify for the 12 percent Investment Tax Credit (ITC), which is due to sunset at the end of the year. That tax credit is thought to be a linchpin of Vineyard Wind’s financing and it was unclear Friday whether the latest delay put the ITC out of reach.

Project officials had indicated that the entire Vineyard Wind effort is at risk without a favorable federal response by the end of August. Federal officials say they are operating within a review window that extends into March 2020.

Gov. Charlie Baker traveled to Washington, D.C. on July 29 to meet with Bernhardt about the project and the federal government’s review. Afterward, Baker said his administration would work with the Congressional delegation and Vineyard Wind “to put together a cure plan because we really want this project to happen.”

On Friday, Baker’s office called the latest delay “a step in the wrong direction” and urged the federal government to “move expeditiously” in its review.

Vineyard Wind had been planning to financially close on its project and begin on-shore construction work this year, put the first turbine into the seabed in 2021 and have the 84-turbine wind farm generating electricity in 2022. The project is backed by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and Avangrid Renewables.

U.S. Rep. William Keating, who represents Cape Cod and the Islands, bashed the Trump administration’s “terrible record of promoting fossil fuels at the expense of renewable energy” and said the latest Vineyard Wind delay “is another example of this Administration’s hostility toward those seeking to combat climate change.”

“There is consensus that we need to fully understand the consequences of offshore wind development, as they are incredibly important for our fishermen and our coastal communities. I supported our local communities throughout this process to ensure their many legitimate issues were brought to the fore,” Keating said. “However, in this instance, I believe that the Trump Administration has not dealt fairly with Vineyard Wind. It has instead chosen to call into question the entire future of renewable energy in this country. The potential concerns that the administration raised could have been addressed subsequent to the start of construction of Vineyard Wind.”