North Carolina welcomes second wind farm, increases local investment

North Carolina's second wind energy project opened in Chowan County this July. 

The new wind energy farm, created under the Timbermill Wind project, is a $300 to $400 million investment to the Chowan County area, North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association Executive Director Matt Abele said. 

North Carolina currently imports all of its fossil fuels, which means that the local production of wind energy benefits the state and fuels the local economy, Chapel Hill Town Council member Melissa McCullough said. 

“[Timbermill Wind] proves to the rest of the state that this is a productive and good outcome project that we should duplicate wherever we can,” McCullough said. 

According to Abele, the Chowan County project also creates benefits for local landowners. Landowners received contracts that allow their property to be leased at a higher value, since it is being leased out for the purpose of clean energy generation in addition to farming. 

Wind energy farms also allow farmers the opportunity to gain stable, additional income from the lease payments, while continuing to harvest the crops on the ground, he said. Abele added that predictable income is necessary to farmers considering North Carolina’s unpredictable and severe weather that impacts crops significantly. 

Apex Clean Energy, the energy supplier of this project, is now the largest taxpayer in Chowan County, meaning that they bring a significant amount of new tax revenue to invest in public goods and services such as first responders, schools and infrastructure, Abele said. According to the Apex Clean Energy website, the project will provide $33 million in tax revenue in Chowan County.

Wind energy in North Carolina

 Luis Martinez, the regional director of climate and energy in the Southeast at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the shortage of wind energy projects in North Carolina is caused by political limits that arose in 2018, when the state senate issued a moratorium — or suspension — on the issuance of permits for new wind energy projects. 

Abele added that regulatory challenges contribute to the lack of functioning wind energy initiatives in the state. He said that many of those challenges stem from the nature of Duke Energy as a vertically integrated monopoly. 

“[Duke Energy's] business model is really predicated on being able to own all of the infrastructure themselves — the generating infrastructure, transmission and distribution infrastructure — and they make all their money from the rate of return on all their capital investments,” Abele said.

In response to an email from The Daily Tar Heel asking about the Timbermill Wind project, Duke Energy spokesperson Bill Norton provided a fact sheet detailing the Carolinas Resource Plan, Duke Energy's long-range plan for customers in the Carolinas. The North Carolina Utilities Commission is considering the plan, which includes efforts to increase offshore wind energy production off the coast of North Carolina to target carbon neutrality by 2050.

Dominion Energy regulates the utilities in Chowan County, and Abele said its decentralized structure allows for large corporate buyers such as Google to purchase the power generated from Chowan County’s wind energy farm.

“We are potentially going to see a number of new projects coming online, looking ahead into our future as part of the current carbon plan proceedings that are in front of the North Carolina Utilities Commission," Abele said.

Abele said  business owners and community members from other parts of Eastern North Carolina are excited to recruit projects similar to the Chowan County project in their counties. He also said these projects can bring investments and benefits to economically distressed parts of the state. 

The implementation of wind energy farms requires the existence of sufficient and sustained winds, McCollough said, and North Carolina has a high wind capacity thanks to its long coastline.

However, the wind capacity in Chapel Hill and the triangle area does not favor wind energy farms, leading developers to consider other forms of renewable energy such as solar energy. Joel Porter, a consultant in renewable energy and environmental advocacy, said the politics in Orange County favor wind energy projects, but the natural wind resources are not strong enough.

Regardless, Martinez said that the state of North Carolina has the wind potential to allow clean energy to not only benefit its environment, but also its local economy. 

“We think North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia — they have potential for offshore wind development that could help us really transition away from our fossil fuel use, so this is sort of the beginning of that transition,” Martinez said.

@KristinKharrat 

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