A swarm of solar ‘bees’ are coming to western North Carolina community hubs

Western North Carolina is building out small-scale solar backup systems for community buildings still recovering from Hurricane Helene, which knocked out power across the region nearly two years ago. North Carolina's Department of Environmental Quality put $5 million toward 26 microgrid projects, working with a coalition of nonprofits. A microgrid is a self-contained power system, usually solar panels paired with batteries, that can keep a building running even when the main electric grid goes down. The plan calls for 24 stationary microgrids and 2 mobile ones, with five sites already announced. In Burnsville, the fire department will get 40 kilowatt-hours of solar panels and double that in battery storage, so it no longer has to rely on a generator during outages.

The mobile versions, built by the nonprofit Footprint Project and nicknamed "bees," are trailer-mounted solar-and-battery units that can be towed to hard-hit areas after a storm. Different versions keep food and medicine cold, charge phones, or filter water. Each can supply up to 100 kilowatt-hours of energy, enough to power a large building for up to 10 hours, and they're meant to be set up outside places like food banks, fire stations, and libraries.

Installation at five stationary sites starts this summer, and the two mobile units should be ready in 2027. Organizers hope this becomes a model for other communities, since a request for $1 million in state microgrid funding as part of a larger Helene relief package was left out of the budget. For homeowners, the project mainly affects shared community buildings, not individual houses, but it points to growing interest in solar-plus-battery backup as a response to more frequent extreme weather.