Wind energy development is growing rapidly in the United States, with utility scale projects installed in 41 states — as of early 2018 — and smaller wind turbines in all 50 states. North Carolina is home to the 208 MW Amazon Wind Farm U.S East, the Southeast’s first large utility-scale wind project. Offshore, North Carolina has the largest wind resource on the East Coast and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has already leased over 100,000 acres of that to Avangrid Renewables to build an offshore wind farm. Aside from the many environmental benefits of wind energy – including improved air quality and water savings from the energy sector – communities across the country are excited about wind energy’s economic development potential. As of early 2018 the Department of Energy reports that there are over 102,000 jobs directly supported by the wind industry. In fact, a wind turbine technician is the fastest growing job in the country with a median salary of $53,880.

Geothermal energy refers to the high temperature, thermal energy source inside the earth. In locations where this heat source is close to the earth’s surface, it can be used to generate steam to spin a steam turbine which allows a generator to produce electric power. Another form of energy — also often called geothermal energy — is the use of the, relatively, stable temperature several feet under the ground. This is a heat sink, or ground source heat pump, used to heat and cool buildings. The Center utilizes a geothermal heat pump to provide heating and cooling to the NCSU Solar House.

Photovoltaic (PV) solar cells convert sunlight energy directly into electrical energy. These cells use light radiation from the sun to cause electrons to collect on one side of the PV cell, creating a voltage. Once moved, the electrons want to return, but cannot easily cross back through the cell due to its internal electric field. Therefore, it gets back by flowing through wires and circuits connected to each side of the cell, creating a useable electron flow or direct current (DC) electricity. In 2016, North Carolina had over 2,000 Megawatts of PV operating, which produces about 2% of all the electricity used in the state.

Solar thermal technologies use the sun’s power to heat air or water. These technologies can generally be classified as either active or passive and work by placing a dark-colored material in the sun and collecting the solar energy as heat. Passive solar requires little-to-no moving parts to use solar energy to provide heat to homes or other buildings in the wintertime. It is a simple, age old technology that still provides cheap, clean heat to properly designed buildings. Active solar thermal is everything else, which requires the use of a pump to help collect the solar energy in a fluid (gas or liquid).