OREANDA-NEWS. Duke Energy will add 33MW of new solar capacity to its North Carolina holdings from two projects in the eastern part of the state.

The company's merchant arm, Duke Energy Renewables, today said it has bought the 20MW Shawboro solar facility in Currituck County, North Carolina, from local developer Ecoplexus for an undisclosed amount. Duke's retail distribution arm, Duke Energy Progress, yesterday said it had started construction of a 13MW project at the US Marine Corps base Camp Lejeune in Onslow County.

The Lejune project is expected to come on line by the end of this year and will serve some nearby Duke customers. The project will be owned and operated by Duke Energy Progress, with tentative plans to exclusively serve the base to ensure grid reliability in the near future, the company said.

Under North Carolina's renewable portfolio standard, Duke Energy Progress is required to procure 12.5pc of its retail load from renewable generation by 2021. By 2016, the utility estimates it will have about 6pc from renewables that it owns or buys from merchant generators.

The Shawboro facility will supply generation to Dominion NC Power over a 15-year power purchase agreement.

As a merchant generator, Duke Energy Renewables does not typically supply its parent utility with generation, but rather feeds into the PJM Interconnection, smaller local utilities or electricity cooperatives.

Duke plans to invest about $500mn in new solar installations across North Carolina. To date, the company has committed about $250mn of that to three other solar facilities: the 65MW Warsaw plant, 40MW Elm City plant and 23MW Fayetteville plant. The projects are all due to be producing power by the end of 2015.