Posted on May 2, 2022
An island along the central North Carolina coast named for a distinctly 20th-century technology could soon be home to an industry increasingly seen as powering the 21st century.
The state-run N.C. Ports Authority is proposing to develop infrastructure and facilities in Morehead City to create a “multi-use terminal to support the manufacturing and operation in the automotive and offshore wind industry.”
According to documents tied to the project’s environmental study filed this month, the proposal calls for paving most of the 154 acres of undeveloped land the ports owns on Radio Island, a large spoil island located between Morehead City, where the ports operate one of North Carolina’s two deepwater ports, and Beaufort.
Like President Joe Biden’s aggressive plans to battle climate change, North Carolina is betting big on offshore wind to help it meet aggressive goals to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years.
The state has set offshore wind development goals of 2.8 gigawatts (GW) off the N.C. coast by 2030 and 8 GW by 2040, enough energy to power roughly 2.3 million homes. The administration has said the development of offshore wind will help achieve the N.C. Clean Energy Plan’s goal of a 70% reduction in power sector greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2050.
Two wind farms are planned for the waters off North Carolina. The one that’s furthest along would see roughly 122,000 acres about 27 miles off the Outer Banks developed with a 1.4 GW project. The other site would cover roughly 110,000 acres about 20 miles south of Bald Head Island in Brunswick County. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management intends to auction off the “Wilmington East” site, which has been broken into two separate leases, next month.
The lease could land the federal government a nice paycheck. In late February companies bid nearly $4.4 billion for 488,000 acres, or roughly $8,900 an acre, for six leases in the New York Blight, an area south of New York’s Long Island and east of the northern New Jersey coast.
Making a case for Radio Island
While the ports is looking into the environmental suitability to develop the Radio Island site as a multi-use facility, officials stressed it was way too early to speculate on what type of development could take place at the site or how it might occur.
“There are certainly opportunities there for the offshore wind industry or several other possibilities as we look for what would be the highest and best-use of any development there,” said Mark Blake, the ports’ senior director of engineering. “But we’re still very much in the early stages, and that starts with this review process.”
Radio Island does have attributes that could make it attractive for redevelopment, including a 45-foot channel and close proximity to the ocean; existing rail and highway access, although they’d likely have to be upgraded; local zoning for industrial-type development; and past port-related uses, although not much is happening on the property now.
According to the environmental documents, facilities that could be built at Radio Island include a 200,000-square-foot manufacturing plant for offshore wind equipment and 100,000 square feet of warehouse space. A pier that the ports already has on Radio Island would be modified to accommodate roll-on/roll-off vessels, new berthing acres would be added, and the construction of additional rail spurs.
Large areas of the site also could be used as lay-down areas for the wind turbines, which can extend up to 800 feet from water level to the tip top of one of the giant blades. Because of their size, the turbines — base tower and blades — are often transported by water, requiring they be manufactured and staged at deepwater ports, another option for the Radio Island project if the turbine parts are fabricated elsewhere.
With active offshore wind farm proposals for nearly all East Coast state between Massachusetts and Georgia, North Carolina could be well placed to capitalize on the growth of the emerging industry. A March 2021 presentation by the N.C. Department of Commerce, dubbed “Building North Carolina’s Offshore Wind Supply Chain,” highlighted the state’s industrial base already involved in wind turbine production and port facilities that could help it serve the offshore farms. Sites suggested as good places for turbine infrastructure included ports-owned properties in Wilmington and Morehead City, including Radio Island.
According to the Commerce report, development and construction of the country’s offshore wind industry will exceed $100 billion in coming years, with that figure not including the benefits of operating and maintaining the wind farms over their projected 30-year lifespans.
Competitive environment
But Katharine Kollins, president of the Southeastern Wind Coalition, a nonprofit that works to advance the wind industry in the U.S. Southeast, said other states are also gunning for the emerging industry and the jobs it will bring.
“This is really is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” she said, noting that Virginia, New Jersey and New York either already have or are planning to invest in their port facilities to make them more attractive.
“If North Carolina is serious about capitalizing on this emerging industry, then we need to put money toward it and make these important investments in our ports.”
The N.C. General Assembly, with support from the Governor’s Mansion, in recent years hasn’t been shy about supporting port projects. But with state legislators in November 2021 agreeing to set aside $283 million for proposed dredging work to deepen the Cape Fear River shipping channel from 42 to 47 feet, it isn’t known if politicians would have the appetite for another big-ticket port project right now.
That could lead officials to look into a public-private partnership for any new Radio Island facilities, similar to what has been done to finance several projects at the Port of Wilmington.
Offering incentives to bring a manufacturer to North Carolina could be another option. State leaders have not been shy in offering financial sweeteners to lure companies here, with huge incentive packages used to bring a Toyota battery plant, Boom Supersonic’s plane manufacturing plant, and VinFast electric vehicle factory to the Triangle and Triad areas of North Carolina in recent months.
It isn’t known if VinFast’s plan to build North Carolina’s first automobile manufacturing plant, announced in late March, is tied to the ports’ including language for facilities to support the automotive industry in its proposal for Radio Island.
