Duke Energy to Invest $500 Million in Battery Storage Over 15 Years

(Bloomberg) -- Duke Energy Corp. will invest $500 million in battery-storage technologies in the Carolinas over the next 15 years to help support the power grid and boost reliability.

The Charlotte, North Carolina-based utility said the investment will equal about 300 megawatts of capacity, according to a statement Wednesday. Combined battery storage from all North Carolina utilities is about 15 megawatts.

This week, Duke submitted an application with North Carolina regulators for its Hot Springs Microgrid project in Madison County, a 2-megawatt solar plant with a 4-megawatt lithium-based battery storage facility. Duke plans to close a half-century-old, coal-fired power plant in Asheville in 2019 and replace it with a natural gas-fired generator and distributed energy resources like solar power and battery storage.

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