What would a wind farm off the NC coast look like from the beach? Here’s an idea.

Adam Wagner
·4 min read

At first glance, it’s hard to believe the turbines are even there.

In six different images simulated to show what the Wilmington East Wind Energy Area could look like from the Brunswick County coast once it’s complete, it’s difficult to see the turbines without zooming in or standing very close. The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is set to lease the wind area before July 1, and it could provide enough energy to power more than 500,000 homes once a construction plan is approved and the project is built out.

Offshore Wind for North Carolina presented the visualizations Friday in Southport, hoping that giving Brunswick County residents a chance to see what the project could look like will ease some longstanding doubts about how wind farms will impact nearby communities. Over the past year, several Brunswick County governments have called for wind farms to be moved farther offshore, citing concerns about the turbines adding an industrial view to a tourism-heavy region.

But the images presented Friday showed simulated views from Bald Head Island, Holden Beach and Oak Island on both clear days and days with haze from UV rays. In each instance, the turbines are hard to see at first. Once the screen is zoomed in a bit, it becomes clear that white poles are poking out of the Atlantic, and then, after zooming in a little more, the lines of turbines become clear.

“The graphics that they used were definitive in their stance that they’ve taken so far that the wind turbines would not be visible from the beach from Bald Head Island,” said Peter Quinn, the Village of Bald Head Island’s mayor.

The Southeastern Wind Coalition commissioned visualizations of what the Wilmington East Wind Energy Area could look like, including this one showing the view from Bald Head Island on a clear, sunny day. The turbines are on the horizon -- white dots that you may be able to see if you enlarge the photo.
The Southeastern Wind Coalition commissioned visualizations of what the Wilmington East Wind Energy Area could look like, including this one showing the view from Bald Head Island on a clear, sunny day. The turbines are on the horizon -- white dots that you may be able to see if you enlarge the photo.

Katharine Kollins, the Southeastern Wind Coalition’s executive director, said about 100 people attend Friday’s event, many of them with questions about the lengthy permitting process or about how electricity moves from the wind farm to the shore.

“There’s just a lack of information out there right now about wind, about offshore wind and specifically about the development and what might happen off the coast,” Kollins said.

The Southeastern Wind Coalition commissioned the visualizations, which used the same images BOEM did in presentations in 2012. Then, UNASYS, a U.K.-based energy company, put turbines that are about 850 feet tall from sea level to the blade’s highest point into the images inside the Wilmington East footprint.

Viewshed concerns have been central to a series of resolutions passed by Brunswick County governments opposing wind development within 24 miles of the coastline. At its closest point, the lease area is a little more than 15 miles off of Bald Head Island.

The Brunswick County Board of Commissioners passed a resolution in August 2021 that said, “Wind turbines located within the viewshed of Brunswick County beaches would damage tourism and the economy of the county by transforming open ocean views to views of massive industrial machinery.”

Quinn, the Bald Head Island mayor, said Kollins was willing to bring the visualizations to Bald Head Island and discuss the potential impacts of wind development with residents. Other than the viewshed, Quinn said concerns include the potential impacts of construction, particularly on the island’s ferry system, and what kind of remediation would take place if something goes wrong.

“This is a community that needs to understand what’s going on around them, not just their mayor,” Quinn said.

The Village of Bald Head Island, the Town of Ocean Isle Beach and the Town of Sunset Beach are among the governments that have passed resolutions calling for the Wilmington East area to be moved at least 24 nautical miles offshore. That is how far the federal bureau moved the Kitty Hawk wind lease area offshore amid concerns about its impact to the view from Bodie Island Lighthouse and Kitty Hawk.

The Southeastern Wind Coalition commissioned visualizations of what the Wilmington East Wind Energy Area could look like, including this one showing the view from Oak Island on a hazy day. The turbines are located on the horizon by zooming in further than the naked eye can see.
The Southeastern Wind Coalition commissioned visualizations of what the Wilmington East Wind Energy Area could look like, including this one showing the view from Oak Island on a hazy day. The turbines are located on the horizon by zooming in further than the naked eye can see.

The Kitty Hawk Area, which has been leased to Avangrid, a Connecticut-based energy company, is the only wind area that has been leased off of North Carolina’s coast to date.

Gov. Roy Cooper has set targets for North Carolina to generate 2.8 gigawatts of offshore energy by 2030 and 8 gigawatts by 2040. Offshore wind could also play a role in Duke Energy’s meeting the carbon reduction targets that became state law in House Bill 951 last summer.

On a federal level, the Biden administration has pushed for offshore wind, including approving the construction of wind farms off Massachusetts and New York; setting a national target of 30 gigawatts of wind energy by 2030; and investing in ports in Norfolk, Virginia, and Albany, New York.

The visualizations are most accurate when printed on 11” by 17” paper at actual size or when viewed on a computer monitor set to its highest resolution. People looking at the visualizations should stand about 23 inches away, according to the coalition, or about twice the image’s height.

Kollins expects to hold more events like Friday’s in order to answer more questions. She said, “Before this, I would have said one and done, but the need is great.”

This story was produced with financial support from 1Earth Fund, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners, as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work.