This hurricane season was at one point called the quietest in 56 years. That might go down as the biggest jinx of all time. Hurricane Helene, the Category 4 storm, ravaged North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida as it turned inward, and the area wasn’t prepared for the resulting flooding.
Just a week later, Hurricane Milton transformed into one of the biggest hurricanes recorded in human history but was reduced to a Category 3 storm when it made landfall near Tampa. Maybe it was a quieter hurricane season, but the storms were more powerful than ever before.
Climate change has made hurricanes more frequent and stronger. Afflicted areas like Asheville, North Carolina, were still reeling weeks after Helene — needing basic services and without electricity.
This season has spotlighted the need for more solar microgrids in towns and cities far away from the centralized grid.
Duke Energy, North Carolina’s main utility provider, said more than 350 substations were destroyed in the storm. People went without power for over a week, especially in remote towns. Duke said they may even have to rebuild the grid from the ground up.
A spokesperson from the company told Grist the company needed to reconsider grid resilience, even as 90% of residents got their power back online by Oct. 4. Solar microgrids can give those benefits thanks to their independence from the main grid.
Photo Courtesy Zbynek Burival
Battery storage systems can be fueled with solar power and distributed to schools, churches, businesses, and homes. Best of all, the power would be zero emission. The question is, how much should utility companies like Duke focus on these microgrids?
Microgrids can be cheaper to operate compared to traditional, fossil fuel-based electricity. They are more durable than conventional substations and cost a fraction of what it would take to prepare the main grid for extreme weather.
Duke is familiar with solar microgrid construction and management. In February 2023, the company installed one in Hot Springs, North Carolina, a small town 40 miles west of Asheville.
Reports say the project cost $14.5 million, with 2 megawatts (MW) of solar power and 4.4 megawatt-hours of battery storage joining together.
“This project has reduced the need for equipment upgrades in an environmentally sensitive area,” Jason Handley, general manager of Duke’s Distributed Energy Group, said in a statement. “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.”
Canary Media reported that Duke Energy said it was more cost-effective to set up an independent microgrid than to upgrade Hot Springs’ existing electrical infrastructure. The town of 535 people is connected by a 10-mile power line that frequently falters.
Photo Courtesy Biel Morro
“What makes solar microgrids so valuable is their ability to store power with batteries,” Daniel Vasilevski of Bright Force Electrical, a Sydney, Austrailia-based electric company, wrote to The Business Download (TBD). “Most traditional backup systems, like diesel generators, can run out of fuel or get bogged down if roads are blocked or supply lines are cut off.”
“A microgrid with solar panels stores energy during the day and then uses that stored power at night or during cloudy periods,” he continued.
“That means a place like a hospital doesn’t have to worry about losing power in the middle of the night. It’s self-sufficient, which is a huge relief in areas that might be cut off after a disaster.”
One of the best examples of solar microgrids saving the day is in Puerto Rico. In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in 2017, they were set up in medical centers, community shelters, and schools to keep the lights on. The island still has an unstable grid, putting further emphasis on solar microgrids’ importance.
“Communities there turned to solar microgrids to avoid the long-lasting blackouts that multiplied the devastating effects of the hurricane,” Troy Fox of Evergreen Electrical, based out of Brisbane, Australia, wrote to TBD. “We’re also seeing similar microgrid uptake in California’s fire-prone areas. People are using microgrids to help keep the power on when wildfire emergencies cause everything else to fail.”
The same principles can be applied to the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida. They are reeling from the storms. Some people lost their homes, and hurricane shelters — often school buildings — went without power for some time. Solar energy could provide electricity through battery storage distribution or an onsite array.
“More towns and cities are waking up to the fact that depending on a big, centralized grid makes them pretty vulnerable,” Vasilevski said.
However, setting up microgrids has its challenges. “One of the key challenges is that the cost of battery storage, though recently in decline, is really very high,” Brandon Young, CEO of Utilities Now of Fort Worth, Texas, told TBD. “Lithium-ion batteries are an expensive technology, and scaling up their use on large microgrid projects can be prohibitively expensive for any community or municipality.”
There are also questions about solar panel durability and efficiency. The regulatory process at state and local levels can also add time to installations.
Photo Courtesy Duke Energy
However, solar technology is improving every day. U.S. government incentives are driving down the cost of cleantech production. More microgrids are likely to pop up across the country, especially with what we know now about solar.
Even U.S. government buildings are installing microgrids. Marine Corps base Camp Lejeune awarded funds to build one in November 2022. Duke Energy was the lucky recipient. It’s the company’s latest project at the military base, having also completed a 13-MW solar facility in 2015.
Hurricanes are only going to get worse as climate change progresses. Solar power is being used to combat carbon emissions, but in the event of catastrophic natural disasters, it can also power regions with sustainable electricity without fail.
