Economic Development
North Carolina Economic Developer's Guide to the Renewable Energy Industries
NEW! Volume 3 - Spring 2009
The green economy is today's growth economy. Since our current economic recession offcially began in late 2007, unemployment in North Carolina is well over 10% statewide with some counties experiencing rates in excess of 15%. There is however, an exception to this trend - the green energy sector. With over 2,200 new jobs announced, about 40% of which are permanent manufacturing or operations jobs, and nearly $800 million in private investment, green energy is a bright spot in this dim economic time.
The imperative from our newly elected leadership at both the state and national levels could not be clearer - green energy technologies such as renewable energy and energy effciency are crucial growth opportunities for economic recovery. This third volume of the North Carolina Economic Developer's Guide to the Renewable Energy Industries is focused on leveraging green energy growth to drive North Carolina's economic recovery.
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While 58 county economies in North Carolina have some degree of specialization in the manufacturing industries of the renewable energy supply chain, four counties in particular - Edgecome, Franklin, Rutherford, and Stokes - are highly specialized in these industries. New jobs from manufacturing renewable energy components will be of greatest benefit to counties where a larger-than-average portion of local employment is found in industries with the technical potential, as defned by the North American Industry Classifcation System, to manufacture products for renewable energy markets. The degree of specialization is calculated using the location quotient technique, comparing county and national employment data from the Census Bureau's County Business Patterns release for the aggregate renewable energy supply chain industry groups identifed in U.S. Department of Energy-funded renewable energy manufacturing reports prepared by the Renewable Energy Policy Project (www.repp.org).
Volume 2 - Winter 2008
The North Carolina Economic Developer's Guide to the Renewable Energy Industries is designed primarily as a tool to provide economic developers with information about the industries in the renewable energy and energy eficiency ields so that they are able to identify growth opportunities appropriate for their area. Volume 2 of the Guide offers even more detailed information about the supply chain and technology development of green energy technologies than Volume 1, plus it offers additional information about markets, policies, technologies and trends affecting these industries
Much information is available about the use of renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies and the beneits they provide. The Guide, however, is focused on an area of green energy closely related to economic development - the manufacture and development of the equipment and technologies that make using green energy resources possible. Aside from its focus on manufacturing, the Guide briely examines roles local energy sources can fulill in regional economies and provides a framework for evaluating opportunities.
Featured Items
North Carolina is home to over 100 companies involved in either manufacturing or developing green energy technology. These companies range in size from small-business start-ups to multinational giants, and specialize in technologies ranging from polymers and composites to solid-state lighting and semiconductor materials, and from biotechnology to nanotechnology.
