Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina

7 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 3, ISSUE 10 or sustainable sources of generation. “That’s typically where we’ll see it manifest in terms of client demand. They want to have a green-powered facility or they want to put solar adjacent to their plant, so the power they consume in production is sourced through their own solar development. It is becoming more common for us to see that be a criteria for companies that we’re talking to, as we’re scouting locations in North Carolina. “The other way that clean energy priorities play into our work is with the type of sectors we’re targeting to attract to North Carolina. Off-shore wind power development is a good example that is really taking off here. There is certainly a manufactured component to those wind farms and that type of manufacturing isn’t going to happen half a world away because you don’t want to ship those very large components a great distance to where they’re getting installed. It presents a recruitment opportunity for states like North Carolina to attract some of that manufacturing and supply chain.” BVM: How do you see the economic landscape evolving for North Carolina? Chung: “Oftentimes, I think economic development is simply responding to market forces. To the extent that we have educated guesses as to where industries are headed, we might be able to fine tune some of our recruitment strategies but in reality that’s a very hard thing to do. North Carolina has had a lot of success in the last year and a half with attracting electric vehicle assembly and battery manufacturing, as well as companies advancing the aviation sector. “But you never know when other emerging technologies will gain enough traction to disrupt all the current activity that we’re going after. So it doesn’t behoove us to try to figure out what industries will be in vogue and which ones won’t. Our job is to make sure we’re ready for those opportunities across the general parameters of workforce, infrastructure, education, overall business climate, and tax policy. North Carolina has a lot of positive momentum driving it forward and that will continue well into the future.”