lohanumber.blogg.se

Flood Protection Added in Grifton, North Carolina.In flood-prone areas of eastern North Carolina, for example, Duke Energy has installed barriers to encircle substations and keep water out, almost like a fort in Brunswick County, a large project exchanged more than 100 wooden transmission structures, often in swampy and hard-to-reach spots, for steel elsewhere, shielding was affixed to transmission lines to prevent buzzards from roosting on them and causing potential reliability issues. Given the diversity of North Carolina’s communities and the assorted challenges they face, a variety of approaches is needed - the perfect solution in one location may not have the same impact in another.

On the strengthening side, Duke Energy has many tools it can deploy, from upgrading electricity poles to placing outage-prone lines underground, to adding protections around essential systems and equipment. “There are multiple layers to our grid improvement strategy,” said Brooks, “but they’re all designed to enhance overall reliability and resiliency in the communities we serve.” “As we add more and more devices that rely on electricity, the tolerance for downtime is much lower, so we recognize that our customers expect us to deliver reliable power every day.” Preventing Outages, and Limiting Them When You Can’tĪt Duke Energy, grid improvement initiatives tend to fall into two main categories: strengthening activities that aim to bolster reliability and avoid outages in the first place, and resiliency measures that seek to restore power as soon as possible after a disruption. “When we think about our electric grid today, we see how much people depend on electricity, both for their work and their lives,” said Jeff Brooks, Duke Energy’s grid improvement communication manager. That’s why getting the grid to rebound quickly - making it more resilient - is critical. When activated, the cycles occur for up to four hours, typically between 1 and 7 p.m.”īrooks said, "its just the compressor turns off and its something that you may think – ‘why’s my air conditioner not working?’ Well give it 15 minutes and it will come back on and you really won’t notice much of a difference temperature-wise.In today’s all-electric world, losing power even briefly can have real impacts on families and businesses as well as on the economy and security. “What does is it helps Duke Energy to better manage energy across its system so it frees up some generation that can be used to serve all customers and avoid us hitting that high end of our usage limits,” said Duke Energy Progress spokesperson Jeff Brooks.Īccording to the Duke Energy Progress website, “this technology allows us to temporarily reduce energy consumption during times of unusually high energy demand by cycling power off and on to your air conditioner’s compressor a portion of each half hour. The program is voluntary, and homeowners must choose to opt-in and have a special box added to the side of their home near the outdoor HVAC unit.