According to the U.S. Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Grid Deployment Office has selected the North Carolina Innovative Transmission Rebuild project, a partnership between Duke Energy, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality and State Energy Office, to receive $57 million in cost-share funding to improve the power grid's ability to deliver affordable, resilient energy.
The project aims to reconstruct the 230-kV Lee-Milburnie transmission line to improve reliability for customers and meet an increasing electricity demand in eastern North Carolina. The transmission line covers the Greater Raleigh area to outside Goldsboro, N.C., including portions of Wake, Johnston and Wayne counties.
The line rebuild will be conducted in the existing right of way to minimize the impact to nearby communities.
“This project will help reduce outages, enhance the power system’s resilience against extreme weather, enable the connection of more clean energy sources to the grid and create job opportunities and new partnerships with community organizations,” said Kendal Bowman, Duke Energy North Carolina state president.
Funded through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and administered by DOE’s Grid Deployment Office, the grant is a part of the Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships (GRIP) program, which leverages federal and private investments to support a reliable grid prepared for extreme weather and also deliver affordable, clean energy as well as create local economic opportunities.
“This funding will help support North Carolinians' efforts to invest in grid resiliency, improve reliability, and meet electricity demand,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy, Jennifer M. Granholm.
The project will create strong opportunities for local economic development, including investments in workforce development programs at Nash Community College and North Carolina A&T State University. The joint effort will also lead to an estimated 550 jobs expected to be filled through partnerships with historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and local community colleges.
