Microgrid technology makes North Carolina city and JFK Airport hub resilient to service outages

Duke Energy has installed the first solar-and-battery microgrid in North Carolina to power an entire city, and a mixed-technology microgrid is adding resiliency to a new hub at JFK Airport.

Utility Duke Energy announced last week that it has deployed a renewable energy microgrid in the small town of Hot Springs in Madison County, about 170 miles from Duke Energy’s headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Wärtsilä provided a 4.4MW battery storage system and energy management system (EMS) with a 2MWac solar PV array, central to the microgrid operation. The system allows a city with a population of more than 500 to benefit from electricity even if the single line that carries electricity from the main grid fails.

In day-to-day operation, a PV and battery energy storage system (BESS) provides support and capacity to the grid during peak periods of demand, and provides balancing services such as frequency and voltage regulation.

In a pilot phase, the entire Hot Spring installation was able to be black-started by the microgrid, that is, solar and BESS restored power to the entire city without grid intervention.

“The Hot Springs inverter-only community microgrid is a huge step forward for Duke Energy and our customers. This project has reduced the need for equipment upgrades in an environmentally sensitive environment,” said Jason Handley, Duke Energy’s General Manager of Distributed Energy.

“We’re using what we learned from this first-of-its-kind installation to take on other microgrids being built in Indiana and Florida. On a larger scale, microgrids will bring more resilience to the power grid for our customers.”

While Duke already has 60 MW of microgrids and battery storage, this is the first example of deploying a microgrid capable of powering an entire city, Hundley said.

Microgrids help integrate high shares of renewable energy into the grid, improving supply reliability and lowering costs for bill payers, a Duke Energy representative said.

Duke Energy’s integrated plan for the Carolinas, submitted to regulators last May, calls for the utility to deploy or purchase 3,700 MW to 5,900 MW of energy storage by 2030.

Power-as-a-Service Microgrid for New York JFK Airport NTO

A new terminal being built at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport will be equipped with a mixed-technology microgrid that will allow the departure gates to run off-grid.

Just before the end of last month, energy-as-a-service (EaaS) company Alphastructure said it had been selected to design, build and operate an integrated microgrid infrastructure at JFK Airport’s new Terminal One (NTO).

The project is being described as 11.34MW microgrid. It includes 7.66MW of rooftop solar PV, with solar on “all available and viable roof surfaces” with 2MW/4MWh of battery storage and 3.68MW of fuel cells, as well as a smart water heating system. .

Airport operations are designed to continue even during power outages, including restaurants, lounges and other facilities beyond the gates. The NTO is expected to begin operations in phases in 2026 and be fully constructed by 2030.

AlphaStruxure is a joint venture (JV) formed by investment firm Carlyle and automation and energy management company Schneider Electric. That said, Carlyle will fund the project and Schneider will provide the microgrid technology, including software and related services.

AlphaStruxure builds, designs and builds to own and operate such projects, on a contract-for-service EaaS basis, meaning the customer pays no upfront costs and gets predictable operating costs and performance guarantees.

“This project is paving the way for all transportation centers and municipalities across the country,” said Juan Macias, CEO of Alfastruxur.

“It’s not just about defensive energy, it’s about decarbonization, risk transfer and energy-as-a-service business models.”

Aviation decarbonisation is itself seen as a longstanding systemic challenge with no clear immediate solution, although many are working on it, and this is the latest in a number of projects to decarbonize land operations.

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