Duke Energy puts new solar microgrid into service in Hot Springs, N.C.
Duke Energy has launched a new solar microgrid in Hot Springs, N.C., located in Madison County.
The Hot Springs microgrid is made up of a 2-megawatt (AC) solar facility and a 4.4-megawatt lithium-based battery storage facility.
“Duke Energy has numerous smaller microgrids on our system, but this is our first microgrid that can power an entire small town if its main power line experiences an outage,” said Jason Handley, general manager of Distributed Energy Group at Duke Energy. Hot Springs has a population of about 500.
In the testing phase, the microgrid was able to pick up the town’s entire load from a black start without any help from the energy grid, using just solar power and battery storage.
“Through energy storage and microgrids, Duke Energy can enable the integration of more renewables onto the grid and help improve reliability while keeping costs affordable for customers and the communities we serve,” Handley said.
Technology company Wärtsilä supplied the battery energy storage system for the project.
“The Hot Springs inverter-only-based community microgrid is a great step forward for Duke Energy and our customers. This project has reduced the need for equipment upgrades in an environmentally sensitive area,” Handley said. “We are using lessons learned from this first-of-its-kind installation to take to our other microgrids under construction in Indiana and Florida. At a larger scale, microgrids bring more resiliency to the energy grid for our customers.”
Duke Energy has been active with microgrids and battery storage within its regulated areas. In Asheville, Duke Energy operates a 9-megawatt lithium-ion battery system at a substation site in the Rock Hill community. In Haywood County, the company has a 3.8-kilowatt-hour lithium iron phosphate battery and 10-kilowatt solar DC microgrid installation serving a communications tower on Mount Sterling in the Smoky Mountains National Park.
