Policy and licensing / Rhode Island
Rhode Island energy facility siting licence
Rhode Island requires a siting-board licence before a person sites, constructs, or alters a major energy facility. The opened definition includes generation of forty megawatts or more and nuclear-fuel processing, enrichment, storage, or disposal facilities. It does not itself grant a licence.
- Category
- Laws, rules and executive directives
- Status
- In effect
- Instrument
- statute · R.I. Gen. Laws § 42-98-4
- Issued by
- Rhode Island General Assembly
- Jurisdiction
- Rhode Island
- Affects
- Siting
- Effective date
- Not recorded
- Expiry or completion
- None recorded
- Operative text
- Rhode Island General Laws section 42-98-4 (Official statute page opened 4 October 2026)
- Last checked · next review
- 2026-10-04 · 2027-04-15
Legal and geographic scope
No person shall site, construct, or alter a major energy facility in the state without a licence from the siting board. A major energy facility includes electricity generation of forty megawatts or more and, separately, facilities for the processing, enrichment, storage, or disposal of nuclear fuels or nuclear byproducts. The licence section's history is P.L. 1986, chapter 531, section 1, with no day.
Not approved or still pending
The statute does not issue a licence. Generation below forty megawatts is not decided by the generation prong. The nuclear-fuel prong is separate. No project is linked.
Dated lifecycle
- 1986 · actual · year · Enacted — The licence section history prints P.L. 1986, ch. 531, § 1. It does not print a day. (Rhode Island General Laws section 42-98-4)
Definitions in this instrument
- Major energy facility (R.I. Gen. Laws § 42-98-3): Includes facilities for generation of electricity designed or capable of operating at a gross capacity of forty megawatts or more, and facilities for the processing, enrichment, storage, or disposal of nuclear fuels or nuclear byproducts. The opened definition does not use the word reactor.
Legal definition used by this instrument only; SMRMap's inclusion rule for SMRs is separate and unchanged.
Related instruments
Projects or designs named by the source
- None. Location in this jurisdiction does not make a project eligible for, or approved under, this measure.
Sources
- Rhode Island General Laws section 42-98-4 (government_primary, accessed 2026-10-04)
- Rhode Island General Laws section 42-98-3 (government_primary, accessed 2026-10-04)