Northeast Coast Advocacy

Duke Energy Has Draft Plan for Pamlico Wind Project

Duke Energy has compiled a map of potential routes for bringing transmission cable ashore on Hatteras Island from its proposed wind energy study site in Pamlico Sound. The utility hopes to build up to three wind turbines about seven miles off the Avon.

A draft conceptual plan, drawn in January, shows six proposed routes for the three-inch cable, including alignments that would bring it ashore in Avon, Buxton, or Hatteras. The map notes that the routes were designed based on connection points to the electrical grid and that they do not take into account potential environmental effects.

The company says it prefers a route that would take the cable from the turbine site to a parcel owned by Dare County in Buxton. It would pass east of Clam Shoal.

The company’s second preferred route would run the cable to the south and lay it in the Buxton Harbor channel.
The map was presented at a meeting of state and federal resource agency staff, which will review the routes and handle permit applications from the company. No final decision on a route is likely to be made for months.

Duke Energy and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill last fall unveiled what has become a closely watched proposal to test the commercial generation of wind power in the state’s coastal waters. Company spokesmen say they have no plans beyond building the demonstration project. However, if the project is successful, the next step might be to look at building turbines offshore, where the winds are stronger and more reliable—but the costs of laying cable and transmitting energy are much higher.

Tying Into the Grid

The pilot project would bring electricity into the grid handled by the Cape Hatteras Electric Membership Cooperative, says Spencer Hanes, manager of Duke Energy’s program on renewable energy and carbon strategy. Depending on the size and number of turbines, he said, the project would be capable of providing electricity to between 500 and 2,500 homes. Cost has not been determined, he said, but the electric cooperative has been very willing to work with the Duke Energy to explore how connections might be established.

While no deal has been cut and won’t be for some time, he said the company plans to provide power from the demonstration project at standard market prices.

Although the cost of generating wind energy over land has dropped markedly in the past two decades, it’s still much more expensive to generate wind power over water than to use conventional sources like coal. At a public hearing on the proposal in Buxton in October, several residents raised concerns that the higher cost of producing wind energy would drive up their electric bills.

A state law passed last year allows for the increased cost of power from the project to be recovered through a rider on Duke Energy’s electric bills. The cost would be spread across the board.

Selecting the Site

Duke Energy and UNC selected the demonstration site after a Coastal Wind Feasibility Study showed few conflicts with migrating birds and fishing interests. The turbines would cost between $12 million and $15 million each, stand as high as 500 feet and be built in waters between 16 and 20 feet deep.

Originally the utility planned to build turbines on single-pole foundations. But conceptual drawings now show the structures sitting atop numerous concrete or steel pilings.

The state law passed in 2009 required the turbines to be operating by September—meaning that construction would need to begin this spring. That schedule was discarded when Duke discovered that it is impossible to buy turbines that quickly, and that getting federal permits is a much longer process.

At the meeting of resource agency staff in late January, David Lekson, chief of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Washington Regulatory Field Office, made it clear that the state mandate means nothing to federal regulators. “The state legislation is not going to drive the federal process,” he said. “We’ll take all the time we need to get it right.”

Although developing wind energy is far preferable to drilling for oil or natural gas offshore, the federation believes the state should move carefully to protect the integrity of the natural system and the public’s right to use coastal waters.

The draft map shows the preferred location of the wind turbines in Pamlico Sound, about seven miles from Avon. The orange triangles mark the substations. The red lines are Duke’s first preference for the route of transmission lines. Green lines mark the route of the company's second preference. Credit: Duke Energy

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• Call Coastal Advocate Jan DeBlieu at 252-473-1607 or 252-480-5361 (cell)
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