June 10, 2021 — Gov. Roy Cooper has set ambitious goals for wind energy off the North Carolina coast over the next two decades as part of his plan to fight climate change by shifting away from fossil fuels.
The governor on Wednesday signed Executive Order No. 218, which calls for developing 2.8 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030 and 8 gigawatts by 2040. If that happens, the governor said that would power 2.3 million homes by 2040.
The order also calls for a new task force, “NC TOWERS, for “N.C. Taskforce for Offshore Wind Economic Resource Strategies.” Its job would be to advise offshore wind projects.
The state currently has no offshore wind farms and only one major land-based wind project — the 208-megawatt wind farm Avangrid Renewables built for Amazon in Pasquotank and Perquimans counties in eastern North Carolina. Avangrid is also studying a potential 200-square-mile wind farm 27 miles off Kitty Hawk, on the Outer Banks.
Wednesday’s order is designed to help speed up Cooper’s 2018 Executive Order No. 80. That order and the governor’s Clean Energy Plan called for developing wind energy as one way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and shift the state to what the governor calls a “clean energy economy.”