North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality Secretary D. Reid Wilson will headline EnergyFEST, the Center for Energy Education’s display of clean energy solutions, starting at 10 a.m. Thursday on its Roanoke Rapids campus. 

The event will feature a diverse lineup of statewide industry and community partners sharing perspectives about clean energy development.

EnergyFEST 2025, rebranded from SolarFEST, is an annual daylong clean energy celebration of renewable energy development in rural communities that informs participants about clean energy generation sources that will meet current and future power demands. The event will host elected officials, academia, industry partners, area students and community members to spotlight Homegrown Energy.

A range of state agency and industry partners will discuss energy innovations and policy changes that contribute to the renewables lifecycle for affordable, reliable and sustainable energy generation and workforce development opportunities. 

Wilson will speak on the state’s clean energy momentum.

He was appointed by Governor Josh Stein to serve as secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality and he assumed the role in January 2025. 

From 2021-2024, Wilson served as secretary of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. 

From 2017-2020, Wilson was DNCR’s chief deputy secretary, responsible for the agency’s natural resource divisions. 

Prior to joining DNCR, Wilson was the executive director of the Conservation Trust for North Carolina, a statewide nonprofit that advances land conservation and connects people to the outdoors.

In 2001 and 2002, he was a public affairs consultant to national environmental groups as senior vice president with M & R Strategic Services in Washington, DC. Prior to that, he served for nearly eight years at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a political appointee in the Clinton administration, first as the agency’s public liaison director, then deputy chief of staff, and finally chief of staff under administrator Carol M. Browner.

Wilson was national political director of the Sierra Club from 1989-1993, managing the nation’s largest environmental political action committee, and before that he was an environmental advocate for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group in Washington.

Wilson has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and Biology from Grinnell College in Iowa.

Clean Power Light the Night

C4EE also invites the Roanoke Valley community and beyond to celebrate and demonstrate clean energy and sustainable development at its kickoff event, Clean Power Light the Night, on Wednesday from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. on its campus located at 460 Airport Road, Roanoke Rapids. This evening outdoor gathering, which includes a light dinner, visually showcases educational, social and environmental impacts of a zero-carbon future through its Clean Power Avenue of Flags.

These flags, made with yarn from ocean plastic, lined the promenade leading to the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow where 120 world leaders met to accelerate action in clean energy initiatives. The Center for Energy Education is the first site in the United States to display these world-renowned flags.

“North Carolina is committed to clean energy education and C4EE strives to provide a platform to readily integrate these solutions to power our communities,” said Mozine Lowe, C4EE executive director. “By sharing these energy innovations, we are moving toward reliable, safe and affordable energy futures.”