UPDATE: Governor's Recommend Budget Proposal Highlights Transitioning to a Clean Energy Economy

Wednesday, May 18, 2022
By | Krista Early
Advocate, Environment North Carolina

Offshore wind lease sale in North Carolina could power half a million homes

Friday, April 29, 2022
By | John Stout
Content Creator

North Carolina's coastlines are bursting at the seams with clean, renewable offshore wind potential just waiting to be used.

Report | Environment North Carolina Research and Policy Center

Shining Cities 2022

Solar power continues to expand rapidly. The United States now has 121.4 gigawatts (GW) of solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity, producing enough solar energy to power more than 23 million homes. Millions of Americans have invested in solar energy and millions more are ready to join them. 

America’s major cities have played a key role in the clean energy revolution and stand to reap tremendous benefits from solar energy. As population centers, they are major sources of electricity demand and, with millions of solar rooftops, they can be major sources of clean energy production as well. 

Our eighth survey of solar energy in America’s biggest cities finds that the amount of solar power installed in just nine U.S. cities exceeds the amount installed in the entire United States 10 years ago.

News Release | Environment North Carolina Research and Policy Center

Raleigh featured in new analysis of solar power progress across the country

Raleigh lagged behind other major U.S. cities in solar power installations over the last two years according to the eighth edition of Environment North Carolina Research & Policy Center’s report Shining Cities: The Top U.S. Cities for Solar Energy. The city ranked 42nd nationwide for total installed solar energy capacity (per capita). 

News Release | Environment North Carolina Research and Policy Center

Statement: Offshore wind lease sale provides big boost for renewable energy in the Carolinas

Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland announced Friday that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) will hold a wind energy auction on May 11 for more than 110,000 acres in the Carolina Long Bay area off the coast of North and South Carolina.

Report | Environment North Carolina Research and Policy Center

Electric School Buses and the Grid

School buses are the largest form of public transportation in the United States. Every day, 480,000 of them carry up to half of America’s children to school and back.

Currently, fewer than 1% of the nation’s school buses are powered by electricity, but with advances in electric bus technology, growing understanding of the benefits of electrification, and now a fresh influx of federal money through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, electric school buses are becoming an increasingly viable option for school districts. Electric school bus models are now available to meet every use case, and the number of districts that have committed to electric school bus adoption, or have drawn up plans to do so, is growing.

Transitioning to electric school buses would provide numerous benefits to communities and the environment, including improving children’s health and reducing air and noise pollution, as well as reducing the disproportionate burden that this pollution places on underserved communities. 

Electric school buses have the potential to bring even greater benefits if they are equipped with technology that allows them to deliver power to buildings and back to the grid.

News Release | Environment North Carolina Research and Policy Center

New report outlines how electric school buses could speed North Carolina’s transition to clean electric grid

 As early as next month, billions of new federal dollars will start to become available for school districts across the country to transition to clean, electric school buses. Today, most of the nation’s nearly half a million school buses run on diesel fuel, producing harmful emissions that children are forced to breathe.

News Release | Environment North Carolina

Environment North Carolina redoubles campaign for 100% renewable energy statewide

The statewide organization Environment North Carolina launched a campaign for 100% renewable energy in North Carolina on Wednesday, February 3, 2022.

Report | Environment North Carolina Research and Policy Center

Solar on Superstores

Solar energy is the fastest growing form of electricity generation in the U.S.; in fact, solar capacity has increased about 40-fold between 2010 and 2021. That growth is due to solar energy’s low and rapidly dropping price, the immensity of America’s solar resource, and public policies that make solar power a viable and economically attractive option for individuals and businesses. The report, Solar on Superstores, documents the need and the potential for solar electricity generation capacity among our states.

News Release | Environment North Carolina Research and Policy Center

New report: North Carolina ranks 8th nationally for big box stores’ rooftop solar potential

Big box roofs have big solar potential in the Old North state, according to a new report from Environment North Carolina Research & Policy Center and Frontier Group. Solar on Superstores: Big Roofs, Big Potential for Renewable Energy finds that the combined roofs of North Carolina’s big box stores could generate roughly 3241 gigawatt-hours of clean electricity each year. That would be equivalent to generating enough energy to power 304,400 average American homes, which ranks 8th in the country.

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