Duke Energy Renewables has announced that its Renewable Control Center (RCC), located in Charlotte, N.C., now keeps tabs on more than 3.5 GW of wind and solar energy plants across the U.S. since opening its new location in 2015.
Specifically, the RCC oversees the company’s more than 2.5 GW of wind, solar and battery installations located in 12 states; it also serves another 1 GW of renewable energy plants owned by third-party generators.
As a result of this growth, Duke Energy Renewables says the center is further enhancing its cybersecurity and other capabilities.
“The expanded Renewable Control Center is at the heart of our growing renewable operations across the U.S.,” says Rob Caldwell, president of Duke Energy Renewables & Distributed Energy Technology. “The enhanced RCC increases our ability to safely and reliably operate wind and solar plants across the country and maximizes the performance of our assets and those of our third-party customers.”
According to the company, the center is registered as a generator-operator with the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) and is implementing additional cybersecurity controls this year to meet NERC’s Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) requirements. This certification raises the security standards for both physical and cyber assets and will be completed by year-end.