Laurel Meeks Helps Add Batteries for a More Resilient Energy Grid

NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / March 21, 2023 / Duke Energy

Foto: Accesswire

By Jessica Wells

Thinking about what's possible, Laurel Meeks said, is one of her favorite parts of her job.

As director of renewable energy development, based in Charlotte, N.C., her team is responsible for adding battery storage in Duke Energy's six states.

"It gets me excited every morning. Every day, we ask ourselves, ‘How do we get to that clean energy future?'" she said. "It's going to take a lot of bright minds and strategic thinking to get to the future we know we're going to realize."

Batteries will help Duke Energy add significantly more carbon-free energy sources, like solar, while improving reliability in a cost-effective way. By 2035, the company expects to have 30 gigawatts (GW) of renewables on its system and plans to accelerate its investment in batteries to support these resources and its goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Meeks was raised in North Carolina by parents who are also interested in making energy more sustainable. They own a company that performs energy audits and install insulation and sealing. She worked with them, earned two degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and continued with a career in sustainable energy.

She joined Duke Energy four years ago and said the role is the perfect combination of her interests.

"Energy is a resource we all count on. We need it to power our lives. We need it to power our communities and economy," Meeks said. "It's an area that's undergoing rapid transformation, and we need to transform to become more sustainable as an industry. That sustainability aspect really keeps me going in my role every day."

Meeks used green and orange markers on a whiteboard to sketch how batteries benefit the grid.

Like the batteries in your phone or laptop, the ones connected to the energy grid allow operators to charge the grid when power plants are generating more electricity than needed. Then, when customers need more energy than power plants are producing, the battery will be ready.

"It's a balancing mechanism," she said.

Batteries will be more important as Duke Energy and other companies add renewables because they will help smooth the swings in generation from intermittent sources like solar.

"(Solar) only produces when the sun is up, so you can use battery energy storage to charge during that time - from clean energy resources - then dispatch when customers need to turn on their lights and their coffee machines," she said, "for instance, during winter mornings and evenings when the sun is not shining."