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County officials in North Carolina defer vote on NextEra Energy Resources’ hybrid BESS permit after local community raises concerns

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Officials in Greene County, North Carolina have decided to delay issuing a special use permit (SUP) for the construction of a hybrid solar and BESS facility proposed by Juno-Beach, Florida-based independent power producer NextEra Energy Resources (NEER).

The county’s Board of Adjustments decided to defer the decision after listening to concerns from local residents at a recent 9 January 2025 hearing.

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52MW BESS co-located with 130MW of solar PV across 1,100 acres

NEER’s Muscov Energy Center will comprise a 52MW BESS co-located with a 130MW solar farm encompassing 1,100 acres spread across two distinct sites located approximately 3 miles southeast of Snow Hill in Greene County, North Carolina.

The larger southern portion of the Muscov project will be sandwiched between two smaller solar projects that were brought online in 2016. Located to the west is Ecoplexus’ 5MW Thornton PV1 project and the 4.9MW Innovative Solar 63 project owned by Cypress Creek Renewables is located to the east.

NEER incorporated a subsidiary for the Greene County project, Muscov Energy Center, LLC, with the North Carolina Secretary of State’s Office on October 17 2024.

According to a new dedicated website for the project, NEER hopes to commence commercial operations by December 2029.

Outside of PJM Interconnection service territory

Although PJM Interconnection controls the movement of electricity through parts of North Carolina, Greene County falls just outside of the system operator’s territory.

NEER’s Muscov project is located inside the territory of electric cooperative North Carolina Electric Membership Corporation (NCEMC), claimed to be one of the biggest cooperatives in the US, transmitting and generating electricity for 25 member cooperatives within the state.

NCEMC provides power for its member cooperatives in numerous ways, including through ownership of power plants and purchasing through wholesale markets such as PJM Interconnection and suppliers like Duke Energy and Southern Power.

The Muscov Energy Center will be located near NCEMC’s Rainbow substation which could be used as the point of grid interconnection for the project.

Local residents raise concerns with project

According to local news reporting, the recent Board of Adjustment hearing was attended by NEER project developer Chelsea Lucas, who provided council officials and the public with a general overview of the project.

The hearing was also attended by Doug Morris, an employee of engineering consultancy Tetra Teck, who went into more detail on the technology involved in the project as well as addressing issues raised regarding the potential environmental impact of the project. A lawyer representing NEER was also present, who provided the hearing with data to show how other similar projects across the US hadn’t affected adjacent property values.

Following the presentations, a member of the public enquired about what would happen if the BESS were to catch fire. Surprisingly, according to one local news outlet “Greene County Newsletter”, no one on the project development team was able to answer this question, leaving a local firefighter present at the hearing to fill the void.

He explained the difficulties associated with combating lithium-ion BESS fires and the strategies adopted by fire departments when dealing with battery blazes.

Hearing run in a quasi-judicial manner

In line with North Carolina law, the recent hearing was run in a quasi-judicial manner, meaning board members were acting as judges who aren’t allowed to conduct their own research on the subject matter, with all deliberations between the board heard publicly.

Although members of the public interjected throughout the meeting, only ‘expert testimony’ is to be considered by the board when making its decision on whether to grant the SUP.

Added to this, a developer proposing a project for North Carolina is entitled to an SUP if it can prove four things using evidence. It needs to show that the project will not endanger the public’s health and safety, it will meet all conditions of the local government’s ordinance, it won’t substantially reduce the value of adjacent properties and finally it will conform to the local government’s comprehensive plan.

Despite this, the board passed a motion to postpone the decision for 30 days due to the “complexity of the project” and “concerns raised by [the] community”. The board is set to make its final decision on the SUP at its next meeting on 6 February 2025.

Duke Energy Carolinas to deploy 2.7GW of battery storage by 2031 

A resource plan originally put forward in August 2023 by Duke Energy Carolinas, the utility serving central and western portions of North Carolina, was approved by the North Carolina Utilities Commission (NCUC) in November last year.

As part of the plan, Duke Energy Carolinas has committed to installing 2.7GW across its Carolina territories by 2031. Although a step in the right direction, this is a huge goal when considering Duke Energy currently only has approximately 90MW of installed storage capacity across all of its US service territories.

It’s unclear whether this total includes an 11MW/11MWh BESS located at Camp Lejeune Marine Corps Base (MCB), after it was disconnected at the end of 2023 following security concerns from US lawmakers aimed at Chinese battery storage equipment firm CATL.

According to environmental non-profit group Environment America, at the end of 2024, North Carolina only had 60MW of BESS capacity.

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