LOADING

Type to search

Kitty Hawk Offshore Wind Will Drive Economic Recovery and Opportunity in the Mid-Atlantic

Avangrid Renewables

Kitty Hawk Offshore Wind Will Drive Economic Recovery and Opportunity in the Mid-Atlantic

Share

Avangrid Renewables is proud to lead the growing offshore wind industry and to power the future of America’s coastal communities. The emerging offshore wind industry has the potential to deliver huge volumes of clean energy to coastal population centers, while creating and supporting thousands of jobs and driving billions of dollars in economic activity across the eastern seaboard. The recently released Economic Impact Study (EIS) for the Kitty Hawk Offshore Wind project illustrates this potential and demonstrates that this project can be expected to deliver substantial economic growth and employment to Virginia and North Carolina.

The Kitty Hawk Offshore Wind project, currently under development by Avangrid Renewables and expected to come online between 2025 and 2030, has the potential to deliver up to 2,500 megawatts of clean energy, enough to power approximately 700,000 homes, to Virginia and North Carolina while creating substantial economic and employment opportunities in both states.

Based on the findings in the EIS, Kitty Hawk Offshore Wind is expected to drive approximately $2 billion in economic activity in Virginia and the Hampton Roads region (which includes northeastern North Carolina). Of this, approximately $1.5 billion will come from increased sales by regional businesses of equipment, supplies and services to support the construction project. $390 million will be household earnings and an additional $100 million in tax revenue will be expected to go to state and local governments.

In addition to significant economic activity, Kitty Hawk Offshore Wind will create or support hundreds of jobs. During development and construction, from 2021-2030, the project is expected to create or sustain nearly 800 jobs in Virginia and Hampton Roads and approximately 200 jobs after 2030 when the project is fully operational. Building and operating an offshore wind farm requires hundreds of people from many disciplines. The project will create opportunities in roles such as turbine generator technicians, welders, vessel managers, CAD technicians and many others.

The EIS was completed by the Public Strategy Group (PSG). PSG developed a custom input-output model using data from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, U.S. Bureaus of Economic Analysis and Labor Statistics and Avangrid Renewables to complete the analysis.

The Kitty Hawk Offshore Wind project comes at an exciting time for renewable energy development in the mid-Atlantic region. Over the past year, Virginia passed the Virginia Clean Economy Act which included aggressive targets for renewable energy in the commonwealth. In addition, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina recently launched the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic Regional Transformative Partnership for Offshore Wind Energy Resources (SMART-POWER) to drive the creation of a regional offshore wind supply chain and support workforce development for the emerging industry.

Avangrid Renewables looks forward to building the offshore wind industry and driving the #greenrecovery in the mid-Atlantic region. Click here for more information about the Kitty Hawk Offshore Wind project and here for the full text of the EIS.

Tags:

Leave a Comment