The Potential of Offshore Wind Energy

- [Anita] Coming up on NC Impact.

Offshore wind is expected to provide a big economic boost to our state.

We'll find out how communities are preparing to fill the workforce needs.

- [Announcer] NC Impact is a PBS North Carolina Production in Association with the University of North Carolina School of Government.

Funding for NC Impact is made possible by.

- [Narrator] Changing the course of people's lives, that's the impact UNC Health and the UNC School of Medicine work to deliver every day.

Our 40,000 team members across the state of North Carolina are committed to caring for you, our patients and communities, as well as educating the next generation of healthcare professionals.

Individually, we can do a little, but collectively we can do a lot to create impact.

- Welcome to NC Impact, I'm Anita Brown-Graham.

Offshore wind energy is coming to North Carolina and the economic impact could be huge.

A recent report shows that coastal wind development in our state has the potential to bring in $4.6 billion in economic impact and create more than 10,000 new jobs.

NC Impact's David Hurst joins us with some details.

- Anita, there are currently three offshore wind areas in North Carolina, two of which have been leased for development.

These projects are expected to require thousands of workers to support construction and maintenance.

The big question right now is where that workforce will come from.

- Be good to see some data come from it, and make sure we're ready to roll.

- [David] James Willey's company, Geodynamics, is one of the first companies to work on the offshore wind projects in North Carolina.

- We are the first people to go out and evaluate a potential site to see if it's feasible for consideration as an offshore wind site.

- [Speaker] Got some cool graphs and such I could show you.

- [David] It's one of the first steps in a very long process.

Willey says the surveying part is pretty easy, but getting hundreds of these wind turbines out to sea will require lots of manpower.

- So it's gonna require a supply chain to be developed across the board, from some of the obvious things like hard manufacturing and large-scale industry, but also sort of a soft supply chain where we're looking into technical jobs that are based on everything from academic research to highly skilled and scientific positions.

- [David] That means some of these coastal communities will have to develop new training programs to create a strong local talent pipeline.

It will require collaborations at the university and community college level, but also at the middle and high school level.

- I think it is important to remember that if these installations are gonna start really moving forward in seven or eight years, that a lot of the folks that are gonna be doing that work are currently in middle school.

And so we've got some work to do at the middle school and high school curriculum levels as well to kind of start getting people acclimated and kind of headed down a path towards these kinds of jobs.

- [David] Steve Kalland is the executive director of the North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center.

He says it's crucial that North Carolina has the workforce in place to support this multi-billion dollar industry.

- So it means that we're gonna be making parts and assembling pieces that are gonna be creating jobs in an area of the state down at the coast where we have not had a lot of jobs, historically.

And so there's a lot of opportunity to kind of grow the overall employment sector in the state while creating these manufacturing jobs.

- [Speaker] We'll have like a single bed out there.

- [David] One of these communities where there may be a big opportunity is Morehead City, where Geodynamics is based.

- Like the little like crosshair thing.

- [David] James Willey says he looks forward to not only the long-term economic impact of coastal wind, but also the short-term impact.

- I think it's an opportunity to build the sort of STEM career path for a lot of people in this area, in what's been traditionally a more rural area, less focused on sort of these high-paying job opportunities related to engineering and technology as they sort of move into our communities.

[waves crashing] - And while offshore wind is expected to bring big dollars to North Carolina, there are concerns about how it may impact coastal tourism and marine life.

That's why Willey and his company are working to collect data to figure out the best spots in the ocean to put these turbines, so that North Carolina can create jobs and economic impact, while also protecting its valuable assets.

[birds calling] And along with economic impact, offshore wind in North Carolina is expected to have a significant climate impact.

The Kitty Hawk Offshore Wind project has a potential to yield around 2,500 megawatts.

That's enough energy to power about 700,000 homes.

- David, thank you so much for that story.

Joining me now is Marqueta Welton.

Marqueta is the chair for the North Carolina Task Force for Offshore Wind Economic Resource Strategies.

Marqueta, let's just start with where things stand right now in North Carolina.

What is the status of our offshore wind projects and what can we expect in the near future?

- Good morning, Anita.

Thank you for having me, and this is an exciting time for us here in North Carolina, really exciting.

We look at this as a win win win for North Carolina.

Win for our people, win for the environment, and win for companies.

North Carolina is uniquely positioned to be a big player in this industry.

We have the greatest opportunity for supporting the entire East Coast with offshore wind.

We have, because of our unique location, our unique shoreline, the length of our shoreline, our shallow waters, and the federal depths that are 20 miles out from the shoreline, and our manufacturing base here, we can be a very strategic player in supporting, not only our state economy, which will benefit North Carolina companies, but we can also support and grow our North Carolina companies by supporting businesses along the eastern shoreline and all across the nation, and quite frankly, across the world.

So we are really excited about the opportunity.

Our manufacturing base here is strong.

In the southeast, we have the largest manufacturing workforce.

And so we are very well positioned to take advantage of the opportunities here.

You mentioned the economic impact that this could be for our state.

For the entire eastern shoreline, we're talking about, the estimates are 140 billion, and so our fair share of that, we are really excited to get that.

- My brain can't even get around a number that big.

- 85,000 jobs, I'll add, too.

- Okay, so help us understand, because our viewers are going 85,000 jobs.

What are these jobs?

- The jobs vary.

They're all trades, all the trades.

There are 74 different occupational codes that are projected to support this industry.

And as you know, if you've seen any of the turbines, these very big prop, these very big turbines in the ocean, a lot of that requires some of that work to be done right at the shoreline.

So our port areas are gonna be very important for building some of those bigger components.

But also, and that's gonna benefit those communities along the coastal shorelines, but the entire state will benefit because the smaller parts require manufacturing, which we have in place already across the state in many areas that will benefit from this.

So the jobs range from everything from electrical engineers, to, we have plumbers, welders, every occupational code that you can imagine.

But think beyond those jobs that go to support the actual building of the towers.

The workers who come along with that have to eat, they have to have housing, transportation.

So that's gonna be a big influx into these communities, just from the ripple effect of what this industry will do.

- And many of these are communities that currently are economically distressed.

So I wanna come back and talk about that, and then talk about the challenges to developing this workforce.

Stick around, we'll have you back for the Roundtable.

Some community leaders on the coast are hoping that offshore wind will usher in a new era for the region.

NC Impact's Evan Howell visited the Marine Training and Education Center at Carteret Community College, where a program is being developed to train students for jobs in this emerging industry.

- [Instructor] Go ahead and put that back auto and say.

- [Evan] Dennis Bassaragh grew up in Morehead City, 10 minutes from the beach, working on cars with his uncle.

But when it came to getting a job, he soon found the money was better on the water.

- Diesel engines, the only difference is just like cooling the engine down with like salt water and like freshwater.

- [Instructor] Hit it one more time.

- [Evan] Bassaragh is a heavy machinery student at Carteret Community College, MARTEC Campus, which offers specialized courses in marine engineering and vessel-related training.

He says what attracted him to the program was a chance to learn real world skills he'll need in the wide-ranging maritime industry, and that includes a possible career on offshore wind turbines.

- A mechanic is always a mechanic, so there are gonna still be problems that overlap with building it.

So they're gonna need heavy machinery to build it.

And then once that's up and running, they're gonna still need us to stick around for maintenance and working on it.

[wind whipping] - [Evan] A short drive over the bridge from Morehead City takes one to Radio Island, a largely undeveloped area home to the port.

It's here where the state is proposing $20 million to develop a facility for the handling and assembly of the turbines as part of a major public-private partnership.

If approved, it's expected to bring tens of thousands of industry-related jobs to the area.

Carteret is developing a new wind curriculum that will leverage existing offerings in marine engineering and will add certification courses that meet the needs of the industry.

- They're gonna have some of that skillset ready.

And once you get out on the turbines piece, it's a water-based job, and there's a lot of experience in water-based occupations.

- Local leaders like Michele Querry say Radio Island will benefit from what she calls the soft supply chain.

- And the opportunity to attract a new industry happens basically once in a lifetime.

So to be able to change the dynamic of our economy by bringing in manufacturers, ancillary businesses that support the offshore wind industry, is a really big deal for us.

- So with you guys's circuit cart.

- [Evan] For Bassaragh, he always has his eye on the future.

- I think people my age have a lot of opinions on renewable energy.

Mine would be, hey, if it's gonna work out in the long run and it's gonna like keep the Earth around, yeah, let's do it.

- [Evan] Environmental feasibility studies for Radio Island are expected to be completed in 2023.

Officials say for the time being, it's local businesses and organizations who are hoping to find a role in the state's new energy future.

For NC Impact, I'm Evan Howell.

- Thank you so much, Evan.

I love the Pokemon T-shirt.

So joining me now is a familiar face, Steve Kalland.

Steve is the Executive Director of the North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center.

You saw him in our first story.

Steve, wonderful to have you with us.

Help the audience understand what does the road ahead look like for communities that are trying to develop a curriculum, or set of curricula, to support this growing industry.

- Well, it's an exciting time right now to try and figure this out.

We have a lot of different pieces of puzzle, as he had alluded to, everything from kind of the manufacturing side of this for the supply chain components, and the jobs, the job training necessary for that manufacturing.

But then also, we're gonna have the actual construction of these facilities that have both onshore and offshore component.

And then we'll have to operate and maintain them over time.

And so the kinds of training that Perry and the folks down at Carteret Community College are working on, those are gonna be the jobs that we need to actually get these turbines put out into the water and keep them operational for their 20 to 30-year lifespan.

We're really excited to see all those opportunities coming downhill because it's really a totally new industry for us and a totally new opportunity.

But as I alluded to in the first segment, we've got a ways to go, and we've gotta kind of get the educational supply chain, if you will, up to speed, start doing the systems that are gonna eventually fill those jobs.

- So Steve, as you well know, this show is all about community collaborations.

Help us think through what kind of partnerships communities can seek out to develop the type of workforce that you've just alluded to, both in terms of the skills needed, but also just the number of people who will be needed.

- Yeah, the numbers, across all of clean energy, are kind of imposing right now.

And offshore wind is no exception to that rule.

We are gonna need a lot of folks at a time when unemployment numbers are actually already kind of low.

That's why it's so important for us to get in front of this in the early days of school.

And so I anticipate that we'll see a lot of the players in the offshore wind space getting involved as early as middle school STEM education programs, reaching out to museums and local school districts, and helping to provide curriculum assistance, maybe even some equipment for folks to use to kind of incorporate this into that early training in the high schools and middle schools, supporting science project and career fairs, and things of that nature.

I think there's a lot of similar things that are gonna happen at the community college level for kind of the next tier up level of jobs.

And so getting those kids out of the community college system and into the kind of professional careers, some of which are trades oriented.

I want to highlight real, North Carolina A&T is leading an effort to try and build apprenticeship programs that will serve this community as well.

And so they're working with community colleges across the state to start working with high school and community college kids to get them into apprenticeship programs that can help to satisfy some of these needs as well.

So there's just a lot of different pieces of the puzzle.

On our end here at NC State, we'll have certainly research needs as we start working on the next generation of these technologies, and the work that's necessary to kind of upgrade the utility grid, the engineering and planning pieces of the puzzle to accept the energy from these turbines and get it to the places where people live.

We've got a lot of work to do at a lot of different levels, and the educational skills range from people that know how to hold a hammer to people that can use CAD software and design grid interconnection technology.

- Yeah, it sounds as though there are gonna be all sorts of collaborations happening all across the state at various levels.

And thank you for previewing that for us.

Solutions to develop the offshore wind workforce can be found inland as well.

NC Impact's Andrea Corona visits NC A&T University and shows us a partnership that is training the next generation of clean energy workers.

- Kernel of Continuity.

- [Andrea] A growing industry means a growing workforce.

- The employment opportunities are massive.

They're continuing to grow.

- [Andrea] The Steps for Growth program is working to fill these talent needs.

It's a workforce development initiative focused on clean energy.

- We are intentionally building a clean energy workforce system in North Carolina, doing it in a very different way.

- [Andrea] NC A&T launched the program, and it's partnering with 16 community colleges, five universities, dozens of school districts, and over 1,000 clean energy industry partners.

- So it's an exciting time for all of this to be happening because there's student interest as well as the ability to do something about it.

- [Andrea] Backed by a $23.7 million federal grant, the program is developing fast-track certification training for clean energy careers.

- It's a great opportunity for a lot of students now to kind of jump into it and learn about beneficial electrification, smart energy systems, micro grids, all of that.

It's just a broad spectrum of how you can impact sustainability.

- [Andrea] The training programs launching in the summer of 2023 include working with electric vehicles, solar tech, and energy efficient HVAC tech.

Program leaders are also working with Carteret Community College and Craven Community College to develop pre-apprenticeship programs for offshore wind.

- We can bring in new ways of working, new groups of people, new demographics, and we can set up a way that really is moreso reflective of the America that we serve today, not the America of 50 years ago.

- [Andrea] And with about 10,000 clean energy jobs that need to be filled across North Carolina, program leaders say the Steps for Growth initiative will play a big role in filling those needs.

For NC Impact, I'm Andrea Corona.

- I wanna bring back our other experts now.

And joining us for the NC Impact Roundtable is Karl Humberson.

Karl is the Director of Project Construction, Offshore Wind at Dominion Energy.

Karl, let's talk a little bit about your role.

Dominion Energy's Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project is the first offshore wind project owned by electric utility company.

What lessons can North Carolina learn from your company's efforts in Virginia as our state embarks on this journey?

- Ah, thank you Anita.

So a couple things that I can tell you is get involved early.

Take time to go over to some of our counterparts and our partners and neighbors, go to Europe.

Offshore wind is new in the US, it's not new over there.

Take time, go over, spend the time to actually don a survival suit, take a helicopter ride out to an offshore substation, go see these turbines working out there.

And when everyone goes out there, you'll get a real feel of the type of work that's going on.

There are multiple vessels at all days going out to these vessels with people, working on them, doing maintenance, operations.

View and see what it looks like to install this.

And when people talk about the massive scale, I mean people have seen onshore wind turbines, when you go offshore, it's just magnitudes larger.

So I think that's the one thing you can really do, is get involved early, start learning now.

We can talk about what it kind of looks like, but until you see it, it's hard to really describe and get everyone involved.

That's one big piece I can tell you.

- Okay, so I hear you saying we gotta see it to appreciate it in some ways.

And I love that because this is new, and it is exciting, but it's also a little bit overwhelming to think about.

What are some ways North Carolina communities, especially those that are in the northeast, can benefit from the Virginia Beach Wind Project?

- Well, one of the big benefits you're gonna see is gonna be the experience in workers.

So right now we are building a supply chain, and I think that's what everyone has talked about in offshore wind.

Oh, the supply chain's really small, it's infantile right now, it's not there.

Well, you're gonna get the benefit of Dominion doing these projects.

These workers can share that experience.

And you're gonna start building your own supply chain in North Carolina.

We're already talking to a lot of these European suppliers that are looking to invest and bring over their manufacturing over the US.

I'm positive North Carolina's talking with them to say, "Hey, this is a great place to come.

We have low energy prices, there's a reason for that too.

And you can come here, and you can do the manufacturing."

Steel suppliers, like Nucor in North Carolina, I'm sure they're looking at offshore wind.

When you talk about offshore wind, it is a lot, a lot of steel.

That steel goes right into the monopiles, goes into the transition pieces, goes into your towers.

That is what offshore wind really takes.

And North Carolina's positioned really well to take advantage of that.

You've already talked about your manufacturing, those workers can be retooled.

All that's gonna happen when Virginia does it, North Carolina's gonna see a playbook of here's what we can do, get your stakeholders involved, get people understanding the work that's needed, the manufacturing that's needed, the experience that's needed, and start that now.

I love this piece talking about, everyone talking about new programs and curriculums in schools.

There's so much more to it.

It does boggle the mind to think, I have to build up safety programs, GWO, we gotta get involved in marine mammal studies, surveying, everything we do land-based on a power plant, you gotta do also out at sea, and now you have to do it out at sea.

So you can see that all these experience, everything we're trying to do, we're going to be able to pass right on to North Carolina.

And those workers, journeymen, they're gonna travel down.

They're gonna be there for you to help you out along the way.

- So Marqueta and Steve, I want you all to weigh in here.

Both of you serve on the State's Offshore Wind Task Force, but Marqueta, as chair, I'll let you have this question first.

What is the role of this task force and what have been it's impact so far?

You've heard Karl talk about the need for awareness, and education, and preparation in advance.

What are y'all doing?

- Well, Anita, we are charged with providing expert advice to the governor and the legislature on offshore wind.

Our task force is composed of numerous backgrounds.

We have military, we have academia, we have wildlife, we have fishery representation, we have industry representation, and just a cross section of different interests that want to have a role in this offshore wind development for North Carolina.

So one of the things that we've been very successful with is we have four subcommittees focused on various areas.

One is the economic development, for economic development, infrastructure, workforce, and education, and our outreach and engagement subcommittee, which has been very diligent in reaching out to communities.

As Karl pointed out, education is a big part of our success, how well we do with communities receiving this or not.

And our outreach and engagement committee has done a wonderful job in setting up opportunities for interested community members to come to various sessions to talk about and learn about offshore wind.

We had two sessions last year, one in Elizabeth City, one in Morehead City.

We have others planned for this year, and we've also done surveys to citizens across the state for us to understand what their concerns and interests are.

So our committee is really designed to not only inform the legislature and the governor, but our citizens as well.

- I love that, so Marqueta, Steve, Karl, thank you for joining us, and for the important work you're doing to support this new industry, both here in North Carolina and in our neighboring state of Virginia.

I wanna also thank the local leaders who have been featured in this episode.

You know, we don't take for granted how generous they are to allow us to share the inspirational stories of their work together, and we want them to know we appreciate it.

And then of course, we never, ever end an episode of NC Impact without thanking you, our amazing audience, for watching and engaging.

You know there's solutions out there, even to brand new industries, if we figure out how to work together.

We want you to tell us what your community is doing, or how we can help you.

You can email us at ncimpact@unc.edu, or send a message on Twitter or Facebook.

And be sure to join us every Friday night at 7:30 on PBS North Carolina for new episodes of NC Impact.

[dramatic music] ♪ [dramatic music continues] - [Announcer] NC Impact is a PBS North Carolina Production in Association with the University of North Carolina School of Government.

Funding for NC impact is made possible by.

- [Narrator] Changing the course of people's lives, that's the impact UNC Health and the UNC School of Medicine work to deliver every day.

Our 40,000 team members across the state of North Carolina are committed to caring for you, our patients and communities, as well as educating the next generation of healthcare professionals.

Individually, we can do a little, but collectively we can do a lot to create impact.