Oil prices are gloomy, but the energy forecast is sunny in North Carolina

It’s natural to feel gloomy about energy supplies these days.

Gas prices are topping more than $3 a gallon, heating costs are expected to climb this winter and President Biden is tapping the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve to keep prices from spiraling higher.

But beyond the immediate price spikes as a sudden rise in demand outstrips oil supplies, the prospect for cheaper and cleaner energy is literally sunny, especially in North Carolina.

A new report from Environment America Research & Policy Center and Frontier Group gives North Carolina strong grades for renewable energy. In measures of growth since 2011, North Carolina ranks third nationally in solar power, 10th in energy efficiency, 17th in electric vehicle sales, 20th in battery storage of renewable energy and 26th in wind power.

“It’s amazing the difference that a decade can make and how many people are choosing to embrace renewable energies like solar power,” said Krista Early, an advocate with Environment North Carolina Research & Policy Center.

That growth raises prospects that seemed hopelessly remote just a decade ago: widespread use of electric cars that could eliminate the volatile cost of gas and a power grid driven by renewable energy that will reduce utility bills.

North Carolina’s move toward renewables will be accelerated by this year’s passage of a major energy bill, House Bill 951.

Steve Levitas, a vice president at Pine Gate Renewables in Asheville, one of the nation’s fastest growing renewable energy companies, said the new state law will have a big effect. “HB 951 is going to drive a dramatic transformation of the state energy sectors,” he said. “It will drive retirement of (Duke Energy’s) coal fleet and will result in more renewables. That’s going to happen.”

The new federal infrastructure law and the possible passage of the Build Back Better bill will also expand the use of renewable energy.

While renewables still produce a small fraction of electric power, Levitas said the rising use of solar and wind power will make renewable energy an increasingly cheaper option to fossil fuels. “People predicted a long time ago that if you created demand, that would drive down costs and that’s been proven to be true many times over,” he said.

Some renewable energy advocates have criticized the rate of Duke Energy’s conversion to renewables in the Carolinas, but the utility’s spokesman Randy Wheeless said the commitment is there. He said, “Even before the passage of North Carolina’s new energy law, we were already planning significant increases in solar and other renewables by 2025 and 2030 to achieve carbon reduction while reliably and economically serving our customers.”

For Jim Warren, executive director of NC WARN, a Durham-based utility watchdog group, achieving a power grid that runs entirely on renewable energy isn’t only about using more wind, solar and hydro power. It’s about using less power through energy conservation.

“We need to quit wasting so damn much energy,” Warren said. “We waste at least half the energy that’s produced. It’s caused by everything from inefficient appliances to customer practices, from leaving lights on to over heating and cooling spaces nobody is in.”

State Sen. Natalie Murdock (D-Durham), one of a group of state legislators from around the nation who attended the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, said the elements are in place for a renewable energy future. But what’s needed now is another kind of power – political power.

“The thing for me is the political will has to be there,” she said during a webinar discussion of the Environment America report. “We have the technology. The partners are there. We have phenomenal research right here in North Carolina. The Research Triangle Park is in my district. But we have to have the political leadership required to actually achieve these goals.”

This story was originally published November 28, 2021 at 4:30 AM with the headline "Oil prices are gloomy, but the energy forecast is sunny in North Carolina."