Two members of President Barack Obama’s Cabinet toured a solar energy project in Cary today to tout the expansion of the renewable energy industry.

U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Energy Secretary Steven Chu visited the project at SAS Institute headquarters in Cary. There, Southern Energy Management of Morrisville has planted one of the Southeast’s largest solar farms.

Southern Energy Management was the primary contractor for SunPower on two 1-megawatt solar arrays at SAS, according to the Department of the Interior. The project includes a 24-collector solar water heating system and a 1-megawatt photovoltaic (PV) system of 5,040 solar panels on five acres of land.

Salazar called the firm one of hundreds of cutting-edge renewable energy companies sprouting up around the country, his department said.

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North Carolina will receive $20.9 million in energy conservation grants for energy conservation and efficiency activities.

About half of that will go to the state to upgrade state-owned buildings and develop a project to create electricity through methane, Barb Barrett reports. The rest will go to local communities.

"If you can project 10 years, 15 years, 20 years ahead, you can expect the price of oil to go up," said U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu.

He also pointed out that science has shown a compelling case that climate change is threatening the planet.

"In a business-as-usual scenario, the world will be a different place, and we’re in great risk," Chu told reporters in a conference call this morning.

"Given these things, America has the opportunity to be a leader in a new industrial revolution," he said.

Also this morning, the U.S. Department of Energy released a list of economic opportunities for North Carolina in the area of energy efficiency, wind power and nuclear power.

North Carolina has vast biomass resources that could be used for power, from agriculture waste to scrap wood, the agency said. It also pointed out that some of the East Coast’s strongest wind potential exists off North Carolina’s coastline.

Chu said the state has one of the strongest nuclear power industries in the country, an area that the government is pushing.

"The Department of Energy is very actively trying to promote nuclear energy," Chu said.

With President Barack Obama’s Cabinet fanning out across the country to sell the his health care proposal, Energy Secretary Steven Chu will be coming to Charlotte on Wednesday, the White House announced.

The visit by Chu is part of a nation-wide bilitz and grass roots lobbying effort by the administration that included a visit to Raleigh last week by Obama, Rob Christensen reports.

Details of the Chu visit have not yet been anounced.

Transporation Secretary Ray LaHood is heading to Lyon Station Pennsylvania, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke is heading to Kansas City, and EPA administrator Lisa Jackson is heading to Tampa Bay area.