Duke Energy is proposing a multi-billion-dollar project for a pair of 1,600-acre sites on opposite sides of the Yadkin River in Davie and Davidson counties, as the company increases its reliance on natural gas-fired power plants.
On the Davie side, Duke envisions a gas-fired power plant capable of producing enough electricity to serve as many as 2 million homes.
That plant would include two combined-cycle units, with each generating electricity through a gas-powered turbine, then using the heat produced through that process to convert river water to steam, which in turn powers a second turbine.
"Slightly warmer" water then would be returned to the Yadkin, said Duke spokesman Bill Norton.
The Davie County generation units would be supported by a facility on the Davidson side of the river capable of storing tens of millions of gallons of natural gas converted to liquid form by cooling it to minus 260 degrees.
The process would allow Duke to store 600 times more fuel because the cooling process drastically reduces its volume. The company suggests an equivalent would be a beach ball compressed to the size of a ping-pong ball.
The two facilities – which together form what Duke is calling the Davidson-Davie Energy Complex – would be connected by underground gas lines buried deep beneath the river.
Rural nature
The company-owned sites are ideally situated for their proposed purposes, Duke says.
The Davie property would be linked by a newly constructed interconnection system to Duke's nearby transmission lines, and the Yadkin provides a ready water source.
On the other side of the river, the Transco Pipeline – the nation's largest natural-gas transmission system – passes through the Duke property and "would serve all proposed facility needs," Norton said.
Duke leases much of the Davie tract to the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, which manages the forested area as a hunting ground known as the Perkins Game Land.
A large portion of the Davidson property, on a spit of land called Horseshoe Neck because the Yadkin makes a hairpin turn around it, is now leased as farmland.
Duke plans to continue those uses on some scale even if the project moves forward, Norton noted.
Still, the rural nature of the area and the project's proximity to the Yadkin are likely to inspire opposition. That's why Duke is planning a public engagement process before seeking the required state and federal approval, as well as local rezoning, Norton said.
"Nothing is set in stone," he explained. "We want to hear from the local community about our proposed plans."
About 4,000 property owners within a 4-mile radius of the sites will soon receive postcards from Duke announcing a pair of open house meetings to share plans for the complex.
The meetings will be:
Tuesday, Aug. 25, 4-7 p.m. at Davidson-Davie Community College's Davie Campus, 1205 Salisbury Road, Mocksville.
Thursday, Aug. 27, 4-7 p.m. at Reeds United Methodist Church, 4731 W. Old Hwy 64, Lexington.
'Ample buffer'
From a potential community impact perspective, Duke views the size of the two sites as a distinct advantage.
The production and storage facilities would occupy 50 to 100 acres, with some additional areas for support facilities.
"Obviously, you're not taking up the vast majority of the site, and we're very sensitive to our property neighbors," Norton said. "If (the project) happens, we'll leave ample buffer between the generation facility and our property neighbors."
If Duke moves forward with the project and receives local, state and federal approval, the company hopes to begin construction of the power plant in 2028, with the first unit starting up in the first quarter of 2032 and the second unit a year later.
The target start date for the storage facility would be early 2032.
Each of the Davie combined-cycle units would be capable of continuously generating up to 1,400 megawatts of electricity, twice the capacity of Duke's older traditional gas plants.
In its long-range resource plan filed with the N.C. Utilities Commission last October, Duke said it would need five new combined-cycle units to help keep pace with an expected surge in demand tied to population growth and economic development, including an influx of energy-sapping data centers.
The company told regulators it expects energy needs over the next 15 years to increase eight times faster than they did over the previous 15 years.
The Utilities Commission approved two new Duke combined-cycle units now under construction in Person County. South Carolina regulators approved a third unit in March.
The Davie plant would account for the final two.
Climate impact
Duke also plans to expand its solar and hydroelectric power production and battery storage, and is exploring the development of North Carolina's first new nuclear reactors in nearly 40 years at its Belews Creek Steam Station in Stokes County.
That's not enough for many clean-energy advocates, who have criticized Duke for its plans to expand gas-fired generation, which produces less than half the heat-trapping carbon dioxide pollution of traditional coal-fired plants but still contributes to climate change.
Eight miles to the south of the Davidson and Davie sites, Duke's Buck Combined Cycle Station, also along the Yadkin, emitted an estimated 1.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2023, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
That's the equivalent of what would be produced by nearly 400,000 gasoline-powered automobiles driving for a year, the EPA estimates.
Duke counters by pointing to the reliability of gas plants, which keep producing electricity when the sun isn't shining.
Scale is also an issue, Norton suggested. It would take 40,000 acres of solar panels to match the maximum output of the two combined-cycle units being considered, he said.
"Not that we're going to do it, but that would be more than half" of the farmland in Davidson or Davie counties, he added.
John Deem covers the Triad for the Winston-Salem Journal and Greensboro News & Record. Contact him at john.deem@lee.net
