Renewable Energy in North Carolina The Potential Supply Chain and Connections to Existing Renewable and Energy Efficiency Firms.

Debbage, Keith G.; Kidd, Jacob F.

Although our understanding of industry cluster dynamics is fairly well developed, it is less clear whether renewable energy firms and related potential suppliers co-locate in similar ways to other more established industries. Consequently, this paper should be primarily viewed as a first step in disentangling the co-locational tendencies of the renewable industry and related potential suppliers. Based on methodology and data developed by the Renewable Energy Policy Project and the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association, we find that the geography of the potential renewable suppliers is tightly concentrated along the I-85 corridor between Charlotte, the Triad and the Research Triangle region with significant outposts in Hickory, Wilmington and especially Asheville. It also appears that the potential suppliers have co-locational preferences that overlap significantly with actual renewable energy and energy efficiency firms already located in North Carolina. Less well understood is how these potential suppliers and renewable/energy-efficiency firms inter-relate regarding both potential knowledge spillover effects and the formation of formal and informal networks of production—a key area for future research.

HICKORY (N.C.); NORTH Carolina; RENEWABLE energy sources; SUPPLY chains; ENERGY consumption; INDUSTRIAL clusters; ENERGY policy

Southeastern Geographer, 2011, Vol 51, Issue 1, p69

0038-366X

Academic Journal

10.1353/sgo.2011.0005