In rural Western North Carolina, mountainous landscapes, tree patterns, and other ecological phenomena can make it difficult to keep the power on. But when Tropical Storm Helen struck nearly two years ago, the power grid across the region was destroyed, leaving some areas without power for weeks.
After Helen, sustainability advocates and state and local agencies came together to find ways to bring back greener buildings and prevent such widespread losses of power and water access from happening again.
(Subscribe for free to Carolina Public Press’ Daily, Weekend, Election 2026 newsletter.)
One of their solutions? “Power Bees” – Microgrid technology that keeps communities powered through solar energy and battery-powered energy.
Mobile Beehive Microgrid Powers Food Banks
Last year, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s state energy department announced it would invest $5 million in permanent and mobile microgrids in western North Carolina.
In mid-June of this year, DEQ gathered with community partners at the MANNA Food Bank in Mills River to showcase two microgrid hubs. These microgrid hubs are rapidly deployable batteries that provide instant power outside of the central grid in the event of extreme weather events. Eventually, one hive hub will be located in the western part of the state and the other in the eastern part of the state.
Trademarked as “Beehive Microgrids,” these mobile microgrids are essentially solar-powered shipping containers with panels on top and batteries on the sides. The inside can be used to cool produce, medicine, and other materials that require refrigeration. These are critical for elderly and disabled people who cannot afford to lose power.
The bees are currently parked outside MANNA, a food bank serving western North Carolina. MANNA’s original store in Asheville off Swannanoa River Road was destroyed by six feet of rising water during Tropical Storm Helen, resulting in the loss of more than a million pounds of food. All that remained was a fleet of trucks that had been moved off site before the storm.
In the days after the storm, the organization, which serves 16 western counties and the Kuala border, pooled resources with other food banks in the state, including Charlotte-based Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina, and continued distributing food at the WNC Farmers Market.
“We never stopped feeding the community,” he said. Mika Chrisman Director of Marketing and Communications at MANNA.
MANNA has since moved to a former FedEx facility in Mills River in northern Henderson County. The new location recently installed a freezer cooler building to keep donated food cold without relying on diesel-fueled tractor trailers with cooler storage units. The new room has three times the cold storage capacity compared to the food bank’s previous location.
The cooler bees, which could be deployed to help people in need during future storms, are currently parked outside the food bank, storing excess seasonal produce donated by local farmers.
Chrisman said MANNA will store this produce, which is at risk of becoming food waste, and provide it to churches and local food banks that come to pick up supplies, especially during busy farming season.
Although the food bank will not house the bees permanently, it will provide the organization with critical support to keep the food bank sustainable while construction of the new facility continues. In the event of an emergency anywhere in the state, bees are dispatched to another community to provide the electricity and necessary cooling processes for food and medicine.
“The great thing about honey bees is that they can be called upon in times of crisis or natural disasters,” Chrisman said. “It could also be used in other communities if needed.”
Microgrid hub for the WNC community
A microgrid is a small, independently operated electrical grid that generates electricity for a localized area. They provide low-cost energy and are an alternative to typical utility services such as Duke Energy, Tennessee Valley Authority, and Blue Ridge Power, which power much of Western North Carolina.
In addition to the two mobile microgrids, the coalition’s 24 other permanent microgrids, or “power bees,” are underway in counties affected by Tropical Storm Helen. The microgrids, called “Community Resilience Hubs,” will be installed in community spaces such as food banks, libraries, and fire stations in Avery, Buncombe, Madison, Mitchell, Rutherford, and Yancey counties.
“This was a really great demonstration of public-private partnerships working together to deploy equipment in an agile manner in response to community needs,” he said. matt abelboard member of the N.C. Sustainable Energy Association.
NCSEA, a nonprofit organization, works closely with the North Carolina Public Utilities Commission and the Legislature to secure more clean energy opportunities in the state.
Microgrid installation will begin this summer, but DEQ will continue to search for additional sites to expand the program. The first of these is a space that helped provide a place for residents to gather in the days, weeks, and months after Helen.
The East Asheville branch of the Buncombe County Public Library, which provided food and water to residents after the storm, will obtain a 120-kilowatt-hour battery to support its existing collection of solar panels. Beacon of Hope, a rural Madison County food bank, will be provided with a collection of solar panels and battery power. Many other local community centers and fire stations will also have microgrids, with additional sites to be announced. Ultimately, there will be four locations in each target county.
“One of the things we heard frequently after Helen was the lack of places for people to go right after the storm with access to power, clean drinking water, internet and communications,” Abel said.
However, microgrids are not only useful during disasters. It has the potential to reduce utility costs in rural areas.
Renewable energy in disaster response
The Footprint Project, a New Orleans-based nonprofit, has responded to natural disasters across the country by deploying solar power and battery storage as a temporary disaster response to reduce people’s reliance on gas and diesel to run generators. Footprint has responded to wildfires in Hawaii and large-scale power grid outages in Puerto Rico. Its mission is to “restore greener cities after natural disasters.”
A few days after Helen, Footprint came to Western North Carolina and began installing Starlink for internet access, solar panels, and water purification systems. Unlike diesel- and gasoline-powered equipment, solar and battery-powered grids do not require a constant supply of fuel, which was in short supply in the aftermath of the Helen disaster.
However, access was difficult given that the storm destroyed roads and infrastructure in the remote area. The National Guard worked with the Footprint Project to distribute these resources. Mr Abele said there were also stories of e-bikes transporting batteries and solar panels to remote areas where Helen destroyed roads.
Ian BaileyA regional planner who works for the Land of Sky Regional Council, he helped bring the Footprint project to the region days after Helen. He is from the area and has worked in the clean energy field for decades, so off-grid energy solutions are not new to him. After the storm, he got to work and was on the ground helping other organizations, such as the Footprint Project and solar power companies, implement renewable energy tools, he said.
He recognized the need for a focused project where communities would have the opportunity to build battery storage assets for future grid disruptions.
“We were already planning to build one fixed site at a time and figure out how to find funding and combine resources to build reliable energy for many of these rural areas,” he said.
NCSEA then helped pitch the project to DEQ to secure funding for the microgrid. Both Bailey and Abel said the $5 million from DEQ was a quick raise for state funds. NCSEA is a network of members that includes other nonprofit organizations and businesses with clean energy goals. After Helen, NCSEA leveraged its resources to bring more equipment and raise nearly $900,000 in donations for the affected areas.
“What we did was connect the dots between the Footprint Project and other local organizations that are deployed in Western North Carolina to make sure they understand things like the landscape and the geography and know where they need to deploy that equipment,” Abel said.
Bailey said he considers the $5 million from DEQ to be “seed money.” This project does not end once the community hub is completed and the funds are spent. Microgrids are a tool that can be used in any region of North Carolina experiencing extreme weather events due to dangerous heat, extreme rainfall, or other climate changes.
“We would like to be able to build these types of fixed locations throughout North Carolina,” he said.
WNC’s sustainable future
Microgrids also have the potential to lower utility costs for communities in western North Carolina. Powered by solar PV and batteries, the grid exists completely independent of the central grid and may already provide patchy coverage in remote and mountainous areas.
“When we had long-term power outages, where we completely lost power grids and communities and parts of the power grid in some areas, people really started to understand how much energy we were consuming,” Bailey said.
Some residents are beginning to install battery-powered energy in their homes. clary francoSugar Hill Solar, chief operating officer of Sugar Hill Solar, said her business is seeing an increase in individuals wanting to install solar or battery-powered energy in their homes. When an individual has a battery, it’s like having your own little microgrid in your home.
In the event of a power outage, a backup battery allows individuals to maintain power. In Helen’s day, Franco said, communities relied on neighbors with batteries.
“That one house with solar power and battery backup was basically telling the neighbors to come and help us,” she says.
Almost two years after Helen, other groups in the region pioneered microgrid initiatives and successfully rebuilt with sustainable energy. Footprint has contributed more microgrids than the 24 included in the beehive project.
governor Josh Stein requested $1 million in its budget request for Helen relief, but it was not included in the final budget passed by the North Carolina General Assembly this month. In the current Congress, North Carolina Sen. julie mayfielda Democrat from Buncombe, said there still isn’t enough funding to rebuild with sustainable energy.
“This Congress has become a reflection of the Trump administration’s hostility toward renewable energy,” she says.
thisarticleteeth,Carolina Public Press First published inCreative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
