What Happened
Almost two years ago, Hurricane Helene left the town of Burnsville, North Carolina, without power. Fire Chief Niles Howell had to use the station's generator to keep everything running. During the storm and the devastating floods that followed, the fire department served as a landing point for helicopters, a base for search and rescue operations, and a field hospital to triage and treat the injured.
However, even in less difficult times, Howell can't risk another blackout. The station is a community center for the small town, and Howell regularly worries about running out of fuel for the generator.
He can stop worrying. The fire department will soon install 40 kilowatt-hours of solar panels and twice that in battery storage as part of a state microgrid project aimed at communities recovering from Helene.
Why It Matters
A growing number of organizations and even states are coming to the same conclusion. With the Appalachian Mountains repeatedly battered by extreme rain and sudden flooding in recent years, small-scale energy resilience projects are becoming popular. Many recent developments are emerging along the path that Helene took through western North Carolina.
The State Department of Environmental Quality invested $5 million in 26 microgrid projects last August, in partnership with a coalition of non-profit organizations dedicated to expanding sustainable energy. The goal is to build 24 stationary microgrids and 2 mobile ones, with five sites announced in June.
The Mechanism/Science Behind It
Solar microgrids are capable of providing energy to one or more buildings, and some of them can also send electricity to the grid. They often feature large batteries designed to store energy to keep the power running for days without sun. Stationary microgrids, which, as the name suggests, remain in one place, are found throughout the country, sometimes powering essential infrastructure like hospitals and water treatment plants.
Mobile systems, which renewable energy advocates from the non-profit organization Footprint Project call 'hives', feature batteries and operate in sunny and cloudy weather. 'Cooler bees' include refrigerators and freezers for medicines and food, 'energy bees' provide charging stations for phones and other devices, and 'water bees' filter water.
Bigger Context
This reflects similar projects in storm-battered communities across the United States and its territories. Private and non-profit microgrid networks have helped keep Puerto Rican communities electrified during increasingly violent hurricanes and an aging power grid prone to frequent blackouts.
Hurricanes like Ida have promoted the creation of privately funded 'beacons' in churches and community centers in New Orleans.
What Happens Next
Two mobile solar energy trailers will be ready for deployment in 2027, and installation at five of the planned stationary microgrid sites will begin this summer. Sara Nichols, from the Land of Sky Regional Council economic development group, said she hopes this project can demonstrate that a combination of philanthropic and public funding can support small-scale renewable energy, even as federal changes have reduced the accessibility of solar energy for many.
'We're basically setting up the model and precedent for what we hope will be a much larger state and national project to duplicate', said Nichols.
Source / Reference
This story was originally published by Grist with the title A swarm of solar ‘bees’ are coming to western North Carolina community hubs on July 14, 2026. Read the original story here.