Orange County NC Website
Browse       Search
10 <br />DEVELOPMENT OF A SOLAR CLUSTER IN ORANGE COUNTY April 13, 2009 <br />Orange County Economic Development Commission <br />County requirements. The industry sector that can meet these requirements was <br />identified as the renewable energy market, with a specific emphasis on solar energy. This <br />industry sector meets the County requirements of a sustainable business that fits with the <br />character of our area and has a potential for high job growth as the Department of Energy <br />estimates 440,000 permanent jobs in the solar field by 2016. The ever increasing demand <br />for energy combined with recent regulatory developments in support of the renewable <br />energy sector, makes this a unique opportunity to foster development of a solar energy <br />cluster in Orange County. <br />Energy Demand <br />Rising energy costs combined with increased awareness and understanding of the <br />true costs of traditional energy sources -particularly the environmental costs -will <br />require utilization of renewable energy sources as part of <br />a regional energy strategy. After years of comfortably <br />relying on fossil fuels, we are facing a new reality. The <br />`easy' (i.e. cheap and simple to obtain) energy sources <br />have been tapped; what remains will likely be more <br />expensive to retrieve in both monetary and environmental <br />COStS. <br />~~North Carolina can <br />expect energy demand <br />to begin to outpace <br />energy supply <br />(assuming that no <br />efficiency measures are <br />successful) by about <br />201 rJ:' From `Renewable Energy in <br />North Carolina', Diane Cherry and <br />Shubhayau Saha, Spring Summer 2008). <br />Assuming future energy demand reflects past energy demand, additional energy <br />sources will be needed. In the past 30 years typical household energy consumption has <br />increased from 9,700 kilowatt hours (KWh) per year to greater than 14,200 KWh hours <br />per year, an increase of 46% (Hughes, 2008). To more clearly illustrate just how great <br />For EDC use only 4 <br />