Hardy acknowledges that meeting the Biden administration\u2019s goals will be a tall order. For decades, the offshore wind industry has struggled to gain a foothold in U.S. waters, thanks to high costs, limited state and federal support, and opposition from shorefront communities that fear turbines would spoil their beachfront views.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe first wind farms that were built 10 years ago or longer were much closer to shore, so the visual impact was much more,\u201d says Hardy. \u201cOurs are a minimum of 15 miles offshore so they\u2019re only a couple centimeters on the horizon on a clear day\u2009\u2014\u2009and two thirds of the year, you can\u2019t see them at all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The U.S. Department of Energy estimates there are more than 2,000 gigawatts worth of power blowing off the coasts, where winds tend to be stronger and more reliable than on land. That\u2019s nearly double the nation\u2019s current electricity-generating capacity. For context, one gigawatt powers about 500,000 homes. To date, \u00d8rsted has secured over 3,000 megawatts of additional capacity through five projects in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hardy, who lives in Newton, Mass., worked with nuclear submarines in the Navy before coming to NC State. He began his career on a fast-track leadership program at General Electric. But after the tumult of the Great Recession of 2007\u2009\u2013\u20092008, Hardy began to do some soul-searching. \u201cI really wanted to find something that has more purpose and that I would be passionate about,\u201d he says. \u201cI wanted to do something that was good for the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00d8rsted was the first European offshore wind developer to enter the U.S. market. As CEO, Hardy\u2009\u2014\u2009who has been working as a wind energy executive for the last 11 years\u2009\u2014\u2009oversees all of \u00d8rsted\u2019s North American offshore wind activities, including development and operations for the company\u2019s current and future portfolio of U.S. projects. \u201cI knew,\u201d says Hardy, \u201cthat offshore wind was the next phase of the renewable energy cycle.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false,"raw":"\n\n\n\n\n In March 2021, the Biden administration announced an ambitious goal\u2009\u2014\u2009provide enough energy from offshore wind turbines in U.S. waters by 2030 to power 10 million homes. As an executive with a global wind energy company, David Hardy \u201997 is ready to help make that happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hardy is the CEO of U.S. operations for \u00d8rsted, the world\u2019s leader in offshore wind energy development. The Danish company runs the first offshore wind farm in the United States\u2009\u2014\u2009a five-turbine, 30-megawatt wind farm off Rhode Island. It also built a two-turbine demonstration facility off Virginia last year. But the company is poised to erect more energy-generating turbines off the Atlantic coast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think a lot of people don\u2019t realize how big this could be,\u201d says Hardy, who was featured on ABC News and in The Washington Post<\/em> this spring. \u201cThousands of construction, manufacturing, installation and other infrastructure jobs are going to be created.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hardy acknowledges that meeting the Biden administration\u2019s goals will be a tall order. For decades, the offshore wind industry has struggled to gain a foothold in U.S. waters, thanks to high costs, limited state and federal support, and opposition from shorefront communities that fear turbines would spoil their beachfront views.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe first wind farms that were built 10 years ago or longer were much closer to shore, so the visual impact was much more,\u201d says Hardy. \u201cOurs are a minimum of 15 miles offshore so they\u2019re only a couple centimeters on the horizon on a clear day\u2009\u2014\u2009and two thirds of the year, you can\u2019t see them at all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The U.S. Department of Energy estimates there are more than 2,000 gigawatts worth of power blowing off the coasts, where winds tend to be stronger and more reliable than on land. That\u2019s nearly double the nation\u2019s current electricity-generating capacity. For context, one gigawatt powers about 500,000 homes. To date, \u00d8rsted has secured over 3,000 megawatts of additional capacity through five projects in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hardy, who lives in Newton, Mass., worked with nuclear submarines in the Navy before coming to NC State. He began his career on a fast-track leadership program at General Electric. But after the tumult of the Great Recession of 2007\u2009\u2013\u20092008, Hardy began to do some soul-searching. \u201cI really wanted to find something that has more purpose and that I would be passionate about,\u201d he says. \u201cI wanted to do something that was good for the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00d8rsted was the first European offshore wind developer to enter the U.S. market. As CEO, Hardy\u2009\u2014\u2009who has been working as a wind energy executive for the last 11 years\u2009\u2014\u2009oversees all of \u00d8rsted\u2019s North American offshore wind activities, including development and operations for the company\u2019s current and future portfolio of U.S. projects. \u201cI knew,\u201d says Hardy, \u201cthat offshore wind was the next phase of the renewable energy cycle.\u201d<\/p>\n"},"excerpt":{"rendered":" David Hardy \u201997 leads the charge to meet U.S. wind energy goals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":857,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"views\/single-immersive.blade.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"","ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"ncst\/default-immersive-post-header","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"{\"showAuthor\":false,\"showDate\":true,\"showFeaturedVideo\":false,\"backgroundColor\":\"green_400\",\"subtitle\":\"David Hardy \u201997 leads the charge to meet U.S. wind energy goals.\",\"caption\":\"\",\"displayCategoryID\":5}","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10,9],"tags":[272,315,408,773],"_ncst_magazine_issue":[],"class_list":["post-4743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-class-act","category-stories","tag-college-of-engineering","tag-david-hardy","tag-energy","tag-massachusets"],"displayCategory":{"term_id":5,"name":"Best Bets","slug":"best-bets","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":5,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":52,"filter":"raw"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4743"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4743"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4743\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5064,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4743\/revisions\/5064"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4743"},{"taxonomy":"_ncst_magazine_issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_ncst_magazine_issue?post=4743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/HardyDavid_Orsted_1500x844-edited.jpg\")
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By Steve Neumann<\/h4>\n\n\n\n