A Microgrid Hive and Some Portable “Bees” Bring Resilience to North Carolina Regions Hit by Hurricane Helene

In the text, a nurse in Asheville told him communications and utility service were down and people were kayaking bodies both dead and alive to the hospital.

“We made a quick decision to turn left and on Sunday we got to work, it was really messy,” he said.

The storm flooded neighborhoods, downed trees, left residents without clean drinking water and killed 95 people in the western part of the state.

Heegaard and associates teamed up with responders who were already on the ground, including Critical Services Microgrid Group and numerous solar installers.

Keith Thomson, co-founder, Critical Services Microgrid Group, a volunteer network of professionals and students, worked with Heegaard and others to power critical facilities, among them a senior living center’s medical clinic, a mental health center and churches attempting to meet the needs of local communities.

Also quick to respond was Sara Nichols, energy and economic development manager, Land of Sky Regional Council, who was out of town when Helene struck. Because she had power and cell services, she was able to create a GoFundMe requesting solar panels, batteries, inverters or donations. That caught the attention of the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association (NCSEA), which joined the coalition attempting to provide energy resilience to the battered communities.

The quest for a permanent solution to deploy solar microgrids

After that initial response, during which Footprint Project supported over 200 sites, the organization wanted to find a more permanent way to boost energy resilience with clean energy in the region, Heegaard said.

Footprint Project also needed to pick up solar generators deployed at churches and other organizations and find a place to store them.

“A church calls and says, ‘Thanks for the free microgrid thing, we’re now putting panels on our roof. Can you get the solar panels out of our parking lot so we can park?’” he said.

To solve the challenge, Footprint Project decided that a Microgrid Beehive–along with some microgrid bees—was in order.  The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality State Energy Office provided  $5 million for the project, aimed at ensuring accessible power during weather disasters.

The Microgrid Beehive concept, which is trademarked by Footprint Project, is made up of stationary microgrids that serve as the “hive.”  A group of portable microgrids–known as the “bees”-can charge or discharge energy at the beehive and then travel where they’re needed. With this type of setup, the stationary microgrids have a permanent location, and the “bees” can be stationed at the beehive until they’re needed in the surrounding community, Heegaard explained.

Footprint Project is exploring the possibility of using the equipment to support the grid when the bees are not in use, Heegaard said. Ten trailers provide 20 kW of solar and 500 kWh of batteries that could be helpful to the grid.

The $5 million grant for the project, which comes from the federal Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act, will pay for up to 24 stationary microgrids installed across six counties affected by Hurricane Helene.  Two mobile microgrid hubs will serve the entire state — one in Western North Carolina and one in Eastern North Carolina.

Clean energy for firefighters, food banks, RV residents

“This program will provide resilient energy access to a wide range of community stakeholders, from volunteer firefighters responding to rural emergencies, to mutual aid networks powering well pumps, to community food banks storing fresh produce, to arts and culture events, to folks still living in RVs while they rebuild their lives,” Heegaard said.  And when the next major outage occurs, the region will be ready with better tools and trained responders who can get power where it’s most needed.

Footprint Project conceived of the Microgrid Beehive in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Ida. The organization had deployed dozens of mobile solar microgrids in the bayous of Louisiana in 2021. As power began to be restored, Footprint Project looked for site partners to stage and use them before the 2022 hurricane season.

“We realized we had a lot of microgrid bees buzzing around, and needed to help them find a hive,” Heegaard said.

With the grant money in hand, Nichols has been gathering requests for the microgrids, and recently ranked the requests, she said. She expects to announce the first six sites for stationary microgrids in the next few weeks. The “bees” could be owned by towns, counties, food banks and emergency management organizations. They could also help out parks and recreation departments that could use portable solar microgrids when there aren’t outages.

The beehives and bees project isn’t the first attempt to ensure residents and organizations in North Carolina remain powered during emergencies.

Earlier resilience projects in North Carolina

Before Hurricane Helene struck, the Critical Services Microgrid Group had been laying the groundwork for boosting resilience in the area, Thomson said. The group helped develop a community microgrid that powers the town of Hot Springs, North Carolina, for Duke Energy.

In addition, the group helped attract a $5 million Environmental Protection Agency grant to deploy an off-grid solar microgrid and electric buses that can serve as mobile microgrids for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, Thomson said. The organization identified the needed solar and battery capacity, along with the type of DC fast charging required for the project. Thomson and his associates worked with Warren Wilson College’s Center for Working Lands to deploy mobile microgrids in Swannanoa, North Carolina.

As the North Carolina disaster response illustrates, it takes a village to respond to crises and to create unique ideas like the Microgrid Beehive.