US company Duke Energy views offshore wind development as a future investment opportunity off the coasts of North and South Carolina.
Lynn Good, president and chief executive of Duke, told an earnings call on 10 August that the company would address offshore wind in its upcoming integrated resource plan (IRP), which will be filed in early September.
The plan will outline alternatives to achieving the company’s carbon reduction goals as well as the North Carolina governor’s executive order to achieve a 70% reduction by 2030.
Good (pictured) said: “I would think about (offshore wind) as something that probably has greater potential toward the end of the next decade.”
She said that in the Carolinas there had been a moratorium on wind energy until the end of 2019.
“So, it hasn’t had as much visibility as I think it will coming through this IRP and the clean energy process,” Good added.
“It represents a future investment opportunity and we’ll know more as this policy gets finalised and as we make further progress on the fleet transition,” she said.
Duke said the IRP filing follows a comprehensive stakeholder engagement process, which work to identify the best potential paths forward to achieve carbon reduction targets, while also balancing reliability and affordability for our customers.