Nearly 200 people packed Joslyn Hall at Carteret Community College the night of February 7th to hear from a panel of experts on the potential for offshore wind energy in North Carolina. The forum was sponsored by the North Carolina Chapter of the Sierra Club, Carteret County Crossroads, North Carolina …

On July 1, 2011, Governor Bev Perdue signed Executive Order No. 96, establishing North Carolina’s Offshore Wind Economic Development Task Force! The creation of the Offshore Wind Economic Development Task Force gives the state the possibility of leading the way into a clean energy economy and once again being the innovators in harnessing the wind.

In June of 2010, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory released a report called “Assessment of Offshore Wind Energy Resources for the United States.” This report found that North Carolina had 140 GW of total offshore wind capacity, confirming what a UNC-CH study commissioned in the summer of 2009 had told us: not only does North Carolina have incredible wind potential, but we have better shallow-water wind resources than any other state on the Atlantic Coast.

Offshore wind energy has had a promising start in North Carolina. There’s lots more work to be done, but much progress had been made in the recent months. Here’s a quick look at what’s going on in our state.

While North Carolina may have the best shallow-water offshore wind resources, it is not totally unique in its wind energy potential, and, in fact, there are a number of other states who are ahead of us in the policy and planning mechanisms necessary to bring offshore wind to our coastal waters. Here, we highlight just three projects.

A single offshore wind turbine requires over 8,000 component parts. Consequently, creating a robust offshore wind industry in North Carolina is expected to create thousands of new manufacturing jobs, as well as hundreds of construction and infrastructure maintenance jobs. Many of these parts are too large to truck over long distances, so they must be manufactured near the water. States that are able to demonstrate stable, long-term demand for offshore wind power will inevitably attract this manufacturing.

Although no offshore wind farms currently exist in the U.S., European countries have utilized offshore wind energy for over two decades. Currently, there are 3,000 MW of installed offshore wind capacity in Europe, with big places for expansion.

In late April 2011, the Department of the Interior approved the construction and operations for the Cape Wind Farm in Nantucket Sound. Construction on the farm could begin as early as this fall, with electricity generation starting in late 2012. All in all, the permitting process for the project took over 10 years, prompting DOI to establish its “Smart from the Start” initiative, to help streamline new offshore wind projects.