North Carolina is due to receive $57 million to retool a key transmission line, North Carolina and federal energy leaders announced Tuesday.
The funding to shore up the Lee-Milburnie Transmission line is part of the Biden administration’s investment of $30 billion in energy infrastructure statewide through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law ($10 billion) and the Inflation Reduction Act ($20 billion).
John Podesta, a senior advisor to President Joe Biden, was among the speakers Tuesday at the Duke Energy Renewable Control Center in Garner. Podesta discussed what the project aims to accomplish:
- Reduce electricity interruptions during extreme weather
- Help bring 1,600 megawatts of solar energy and 260 megawatts of storage
- Cost 30% less than constructing new transmission
- Bring benefits to communities
- Create 550 jobs
“It improves your liability, it saves money, it helps build clean power, it reduces pollution and creates good-paying jobs,” Podesta said. “As my mother used to say when I was a kid, ‘What’s not to like?’”
The $57 million grant will go to the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality and the State Energy Office. It will help retool a key transmission line between Wake and Wayne counties, replacing wood poles with steel and adding more power capacity. Governor Roy Cooper said it will make the grid stronger during future storms.
The updates will take a few years, but Tropical Storm Debby is just a couple of days away from North Carolina.
Kendal Bowman, president of Duke Energy's utility operations in North Carolina, said Duke Energy has been making changes already and crews are as prepared as they can be for Tropical Storm Debby. She said there are 6,900 crews in North Carolina ready to go.
U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm toured the Duke Energy Facility on Tuesday to highlight the Biden administration’s spending on the nation’s electric power grid. She said the grid is just as important today as highways or water systems. She said the grid system has more than 5 million miles of distribution lines.
“That is the largest machine on Earth, the grid is and yet, much of our grid was built in the 1950s, 1960s and hasn’t been upgraded,” Granholm said.
U.S. Rep. Deborah Ross, D-North Carolina, discussed the specifics of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
“I’m pleased to say that working with my colleagues from both parties on this issue, we were ultimately successful,” Ross said.
Ross said the law includes a program to help connect clean energy projects to the grid and improve the state’s power sectors’ resilience against the threats of climate change and extreme weather events.
Gov. Roy Cooper said Tuesday it will lead to fewer outages and shorter outages when they do happen. He said it will also keep consumer costs down because the funding goes to maintenance costs that Duke Energy customers won’t have to cover in their monthly bills.
“With our growing economy, we happen to be the third-fastest growing state in the country … the demand for energy increases,” Cooper said.
Cooper mentioned CNBC’s high rankings of North Carolina as a top state for business. He also said North Carolina is a leader in electric vehicle manufacturing. At least four companies have announced plans for battery factories in central North Carolina.
“With all of that success comes the infrastructure challenges that we know that we have to face,” Cooper said.
Cooper said North Carolina has to produce power at a lower cost and cleaner than it was in the past.
“We need to make sure we meet the needs of businesses that don’t want to leave a carbon footprint,” Cooper said.
“When President Biden and Vice President [Kamala] Harris took office, they set out a vision to tackle the climate crisis and reach 100% of clean electricity by 2035, but in order to get there, we needed to invest, especially in transmission,” Podesta said. “We needed to double our current transmission capacity.”
Podesta said Tuesday the climate crisis has already arrived.
“Two weeks ago, last Sunday, [July 21] was the hottest day ever recorded by humans in history,” Podesta said.
Podesta said the record lasted one day because July 22 broke the record.
On Tuesday, Granholm discussed the importance of North Carolina having a “21st-century grid” and having the proper energy infrastructure.
WRAL News asked Granholm what the Biden-Harris administration is doing to modernize the power grid in the Southeast.
“We want to make sure that states have the opportunity not just to use these grid-enhancing technologies, like reconductoring, but also to choose to underground for example, which is more expensive,” Granholm said. “And so, having a federal partnership to be able to make that resiliency play is important.”
Granholm mentioned how the funding will help improve grid resiliency throughout the region.
“Now, more than ever, it is important for us to be focused on liability, affordability and increasingly clean energy to meet the needs of all of our customers,” Bowman said.