1 year after Helene, Duke Energy continues strengthening its technology for future storms

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (WLOS) — One year after Hurricane Helene, Duke Energy continues to prioritize energy reliability in western North Carolina, using innovative technology to better protect the grid from future weather disasters.

Duke Energy is making permanent repairs to three substations across the region that experienced flooding during the storm.

Jeff Brooks with Duke Energy said the substations are operational, and the repairs will help strengthen the grid impacted by Helene.

A total of 2.7 million Duke Energy customers in the Carolinas lost power during the storm. Additionally, more than 350 substations were damaged, some requiring extensive repairs due to flooding. Brooks said he’s never seen the scale of infrastructure damage Helene caused.

DUKE ENERGY SHOWS HELENE’S EXTENSIVE DAMAGE TO SUBSTATION AS CREWS WORK TO RESTORE POWER

The power company is using technology to improve its systems.

“We’re upgrading polls and wires to make them stronger and more resistant to high winds. We’re adding things like self-healing technology that can automatically restore power when an outage occurs, and we’re increasing capacity,” Brooks said. “This is a growing area, and we need to make sure that power stays reliable.”

Last year, the upgrade to self-healing technology kept many customers from losing power.

DUKE ENERGY ‘ENERGIZES’ SUBSTATION DAMAGED BY HELENE, PREPARES FOR FUTURE STORMS

“Self-healing technology automatically detects an outage and then looks for other power lines to reroute power, and that technology helped to avoid more than 100,000 outages just here in Buncombe County last year, and nearly half of those were during storms,” Brooks said.

While standing in Duke Energy’s Asheville operations center Friday, Brooks said that as they reflect on a year since the storm, they remember how important it is to be there for customers.

Helene was also the first storm for which Duke Energy had grief counselors on hand due to the tragedies its workers experienced.