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Duke Energy brings $100M, 50-MW battery online at former coal site
Duke Energy has brought on line a 50-MW, four-hour battery energy storage system (BESS) at its former Allen coal plant on Lake Wylie, serving customers in North Carolina and South Carolina, and has also unveiled plans for additional battery storage and new jobs at the Gaston County site.
The first BESS, at a cost of approximately $100 million, began serving customers in November. Final testing is being completed this month. Construction of a second BESS – Duke Energy’s largest, a 167-MW, four-hour system – will begin in May on 10 acres where the coal plant’s now-demolished emissions control system once stood.
Both lithium-ion battery systems qualify for federal investment tax credits, which will offset 40% of the cost for Duke Energy customers. That figure includes an extra 10% for reinvesting into an energy community. The coal plant retired in December 2024.
We’re building new resources to keep the Carolinas’ economy thriving, while reinvesting in a former coal plant community that helped power this region for decades,” said Kendal Bowman, Duke Energy’s North Carolina president. “Repurposing existing energy infrastructure and taking advantage of federal funding significantly offset costs for our customers while continuing to support rapid growth across the region.”
Duke Energy plans to make similar battery storage investments in multiple counties across the Carolinas. The company’s 2025 Carolinas Resource Plan, now under review by state regulators, projects the addition of 6,550 MW of batteries by 2035 in North Carolina and South Carolina. Across the Carolinas, Duke Energy’s customer energy needs over the next 15 years are expected to grow at eight times the growth rate of the prior 15 years.
Duke Energy’s plans call for battery storage at both of the county’s retired coal plant sites along the Catawba River: Allen (1957-2024 in Belmont) and Riverbend (1929-2013 in Mount Holly). Construction of the latter, a 115-MW, four-hour BESS, is expected to begin in late 2026, coming online in late 2027.
“We are proud of how this site and its people continue to support our customers,” said Bryan Walsh, Duke Energy’s vice president of Regulated Renewables and Lake Services. “Multiple former Allen plant employees now work on our Regulated Renewables team, which maintains and operates the new batteries at Allen and elsewhere in the Carolinas. Duke Energy’s test site for new battery technologies, its Emerging Technology and Innovation Center, is also in Mount Holly.”
As part of the company’s rate review now before the North Carolina Utilities Commission, Duke Energy has proposed a third BESS at Allen to come on line by the end of 2028, as well as a regional operations, training and warehouse facility for batteries and renewables that could house 20-50 employees. Plans for both are still evolving and subject to regulator approval, Duke Energy noted.
Originally published in Factor This.
