Duke Energy has begun commercial operation of North Carolina’s largest battery system, an 11-MW project in Onslow County.
Duke Energy’s battery energy storage system (BESS) operates in conjunction with an adjacent 13-MW solar facility located on a leased site within Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, which has been generating carbon-free energy since 2015, Solar Power World reports. The two sites can also be operated independently.
Energy Storage News quoted the Director of public works at the Marine Corps Base Navy Commander Ross Campbell,l who said, “Integration of the solar plant with a battery energy storage system, unthinkable a decade ago, presents the installation with a number of opportunities to achieve energy resilience objectives.”
“Battery storage is an important resource for our transition to cleaner energy,” said Kendal Bowman, Duke Energy’s North Carolina state president. “Pairing the energy storage system with our existing solar facility at Camp Lejeune helps strengthen the reliability of our energy grid and makes better use of our existing solar generation.”
Both projects are connected to a Duke Energy substation and will be used to serve all Duke Energy Progress customers. Future work could enable the solar and battery systems to improve the resiliency of MCB Camp Lejeune against outages.
The battery’s chemistry is lithium iron phosphate with the system rated at 11 MW/11 MWh, and its physical footprint is about 1 acre. Duke Energy partnered with Black & Veatch construction entity OCI, which acted as the prime contractor for engineering, procurement, and construction.
In recent years, Duke Energy has been expanding battery storage in North Carolina. In the city of Asheville, a 9 MW lithium-ion battery system is operating next to a Duke Energy substation in the Shiloh community. In Madison County, in the town of Hot Springs, the company has a 4 MW lithium-ion battery system that is part of a microgrid in the town.
