Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker signed into law a major clean energy legislation package on Thursday that makes significant changes to the regulation of nearly every clean energy sector in Massachusetts, including the offshore wind industry that the South Coast is competing to secure investments from alongside other regions across the eastern U.S.

One of the law’s most significant provisions for the region removes a price cap for electricity generated by offshore wind farms in an effort to incentivize companies to hire locally and build out a supply chain of manufacturing and assembly facilities in the state.

The South Coast is better positioned than many regions of the U.S. to compete for these private investments. The region is home to a pair of coastal cities that form the closest industrial center in the nation to the federal waters where developers are planning and constructing the nation’s first utility-scale offshore wind farms.

Public agencies in Massachusetts have already constructed a $133 million port facility in New Bedford for assembling wind turbines, and private developers are in the early stages of building a second offshore wind terminal there as well. A separate development group is planning an undersea cable factory in nearby Somerset.

Massachusetts’ new climate law aims to secure additional investments by revising a previous climate legislation package that incentivized offshore wind developers to minimize the cost of building out America’s first large-scale offshore wind farms.

Since 2016, Massachusetts law has required utility providers like National Grid and Eversource to sign agreements to buy electricity from offshore wind farms once they are completed. There are already agreements in place to power about a quarter of Massachusetts’ homes with offshore wind energy within a few years. But until now, each of these power purchase agreements had to be cheaper than the last.

The rule was meant to keep electricity costs down for consumers, but some lawmakers felt it was hurting Massachusetts’ ability to secure economic development commitments from offshore wind companies and left the state losing coveted manufacturing facilities to New York and Virginia.

The new law, signed by Baker on Thursday afternoon after days of speculation that he was considering a veto, allows the state to consider more than just electricity costs when deciding which offshore wind companies to buy power from.

The state can now prioritize bids that promise other kinds of benefits, including new factories to create a domestic supply chain for offshore wind farms, and commitments to hire from unions, and minority and women-owned businesses, among other factors.

The law also changes who is in charge of selecting the winning bids for these power purchase agreements. Previously, that responsibility belonged to a committee of utility companies, an arrangement that created a clear conflict of interest that legislators were intent on rectifying this year.

Eversource, a member of the selection committee, is also a co-developer of several offshore wind farms proposed off the southern coast of Martha’s Vineyard, though the company has never submitted a bid for a power purchase agreement in Massachusetts while participating on the committee.

The Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources will now assume the responsibility of selecting winning bids for power purchase agreements.

Another change spurred by the new climate legislation is a requirement that offshore wind developers conduct pre- and post-construction monitoring to understand the effects of wind turbines and undersea cables on birds and marine life, a concession to fishermen and environmentalists who have been voicing concerns for years that offshore wind farms could weaken already struggling fisheries and marine ecosystems.

The law also provides funding to the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center to create a new “clean energy equity workforce and market development program,” which is charged with working with offshore wind developers, public colleges and vocational schools to develop job training programs that strengthen and diversify the pipeline of local workers entering the offshore wind workforce.

Ben Berke is the South Coast Bureau Reporter for The Public’s Radio. He can be reached at bberke@thepublicsradio.org. Follow him on Twitter @BenBerke6.