Advancing Resiliency: How Vote Solar’s Testimony is Helping Shape North Carolina’s Energy Future
In a rapidly evolving energy landscape, resilience is a necessity. As extreme weather events become more frequent and severe, the importance of building a robust, adaptable energy grid has never been clearer.
Jake Duncan, our Regulatory Director for the Carolinas, recently delivered powerful testimony before the North Carolina Utilities Commission, highlighting critical gaps in the proposed Carbon Plan Integrated Resource Plan (CPIRP). The CPIRP is a planning process to determine the best possible mix of resources to meet both energy needs and carbon reduction goals over the next fifteen years.
Jake’s insights underscore the need for an energy network that is decentralized. A decentralized network would allow homes and businesses to rely on local and rooftop solar, even when centralized resources (think: gas plants) experience outages. This testimony was a pivotal moment in the ongoing discussion about North Carolina’s energy future, where the state’s energy regulators determine how to meet increases in customer demand while also complying with legislative requirements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible. Dozens of experts provided testimony to the regulators and hundreds of concerned citizens and community groups sent in comments to inform the regulator’s decision. Duke Energy’s proposed plan relies heavily on one of the largest proposed fossil gas build-outs in the country. Jake highlighted several key areas where Duke’s proposal fell short, particularly in its failure to account for the capacity that behind-the-meter storage and managed electric vehicle (EV) charging programs can add to the grid. By not incorporating these elements, Duke Energy risks over-relying on new fossil gas, missing out on significant opportunities to enhance grid resilience, reducing costs for consumers, and meeting the State’s clean energy goals in a timely manner.
Behind-the-Meter Storage: A Missing Piece
Jake pointed out a critical oversight in the Carbon Plan Integrated Resource Plan: the exclusion of behind-the-meter storage from the plan’s modeling. With the rapid adoption of home battery systems, this exclusion could lead to an underutilization of a resource that can provide vital grid services during peak demand and emergencies. He estimated that by 2038, there could be at least 469 megawatts (MW) of behind-the-meter storage—an amount that the utility’s current plan does not account for and could potentially offset the need for an entire gas plant by the mid 2030’s.
Electric Vehicles: Balancing the Load
Jake also addressed the asymmetry in the Carbon Plan Integrated Resource Plan’s treatment of electric vehicle load. While the plan accounted for the entirety of the projected electric vehicle load, it failed to consider the potential of managed electric vehicle charging programs to significantly reduce peak demand. By implementing strategies that incentivize charging during less popular hours, or even use electric vehicle batteries to add additional capacity to the grid during periods of high energy use, the winter peak load from electric vehicles could drop from 820 megawatts to 569 megawatts by 2038—a substantial reduction that the Carbon Plan Integrated Resource Plan overlooked.
Virtual Power Plants: The Future of Grid Management
Another innovative solution Jake advocated for was the integration of Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) into the Carbon Plan Integrated Resource Plan. Virtual power plants, which aggregate distributed energy resources like solar panels and batteries to operate as a single power plant, offer a cost-effective way to balance supply and demand on the grid. Jake recommended that the Commission set a virtual power plants goal of 300 megawatts by 2030, signaling the importance of this emerging technology in North Carolina’s energy strategy.
PowerPair: A Step Towards Resilience
Programs that Jake offered as an example, like Duke Energy’s recent PowerPair pilot program, are already advancing in states across the country, and align with North Carolina’s resilience and innovation needs. This pilot program incentivizes the installation of home solar and battery storage systems, offering customers up to $9,000 to help offset costs. By integrating these systems into the grid, PowerPair participants will not only contribute to the state’s clean energy goals but also enhance the grid’s resilience during peak demand periods and extreme weather events. One of his key recommendations is to expand this offering to more customers and to make the program permanent.
A Vision for a Resilient Future
By intentionally incorporating behind-the-meter storage, managed electric vehicle charging, and virtual power plants into North Carolina’s energy generation strategy, the state can build a grid that is not only cleaner but also more robust in the face of growing climate challenges.
As North Carolina continues its journey toward a clean energy future, the insights from Jake Duncan’s testimony will play a crucial role in shaping policies that prioritize resilience and innovation. Programs like PowerPair are steps in the right direction, but there is still much work to be done. By embracing the potential of distributed energy resources and forward-thinking solutions like virtual power plants, North Carolina can lead the way in building a resilient, clean energy system for all.