Duke Energy Upgrades Trenton Battery Into Community Microgrid for 1,500 Florida Customers
Duke Energy Florida has upgraded its 11 MW Trenton battery facility into an islandable community microgrid capable of supplying about 1,500 customers for up to four hours during wider grid outages.
Published · 4 min read
Duke Energy Florida announced August 31 that it has upgraded its 11 MW battery facility in Trenton, Florida, into the Duke Energy Trenton community microgrid, enabling the system to separate automatically from the wider grid during an outage and supply local customers from stored electricity. The upgrade matters because it extends battery storage beyond peak management and turns the existing facility into community-scale backup infrastructure for rural Gilchrist County.
Approximately 1,500 customers can receive backup power for up to four hours when the battery islands from the grid, according to Duke Energy Florida’s August 31 announcement. The utility said the facility detects an outage automatically, disconnects from the larger system and continues serving customers from the battery.
The battery was operating before the microgrid upgrade
The Trenton lithium battery facility first entered service in 2022. Duke Energy originally used the 11 MW installation to store electricity, help balance demand and defer conventional grid upgrades.
The latest work changes how the asset can operate during a disruption. Instead of remaining solely a grid-connected storage resource, the battery can now establish an electrically isolated section of the distribution network and continue supplying nearby customers while the larger system is unavailable.
That operating mode is commonly called islanding. Microgrid Media’s guide to microgrid controllers and islanding explains how controls coordinate the transition between grid-connected operation, islanded operation and eventual reconnection.
Trenton becomes Duke Energy Florida’s second community microgrid
Duke Energy said Trenton is its second Florida battery facility configured to provide this type of community backup service. The company’s first Florida community microgrid was developed in Micanopy, an Alachua County town southeast of Gainesville.
The utility currently owns and operates six battery facilities across Florida. Those assets can store electricity for periods of high system demand, while the Trenton and Micanopy installations add another function by supporting customers directly during outages.
The approach differs from a behind-the-meter microgrid serving a single campus or building. A community microgrid can support multiple customers across a defined section of the utility distribution system.
Microgrid Media recently covered another Florida model through the planned NextNRG healthcare microgrid in Hollywood, where solar, battery storage and automated controls are being developed behind the meter for a medical campus. Trenton instead uses utility-owned storage to support a wider group of distribution customers.
The system is designed around outage resilience
Duke Energy framed the Trenton upgrade as part of a broader reliability strategy in a state regularly exposed to hurricanes, thunderstorms and other severe weather.
The utility said approximately half of its Florida distribution system is underground and that more than 82% of customers are served by self-healing technology capable of detecting faults and rerouting power around damaged sections of the network. Duke Energy also reported replacing about 60% of its wooden transmission poles with stronger materials during the past five years.
Battery-backed islanding adds a different resilience layer. Automated rerouting can limit the number of customers affected by a fault, while an islandable battery can keep a defined local area energized when rerouting alone cannot restore service.
Florida has also become a proving ground for broader community-level resilience strategies. Microgrid Media has examined Babcock Ranch’s hurricane-resilient energy and infrastructure model, which combines solar generation with hardened community systems designed to withstand major storms.
The four-hour backup figure has limits
The stated four hours of backup should be understood as the utility’s announced capability for the approximately 1,500 customers served by the microgrid, not a guarantee that every outage will produce exactly four hours of service.
Actual battery duration can depend on customer demand, the battery’s state of charge when an outage begins, operating conditions and the way the microgrid is dispatched.
Duke Energy did not disclose the battery’s total megawatt-hour energy capacity in the August 31 announcement, so an independent duration calculation cannot be made from the 11 MW power rating alone.
What happens next
The Duke Energy Trenton community microgrid is now an operating grid-resilience asset rather than a proposed project. Its next important test will come during real distribution outages, when operating data can show how effectively the battery reduces outage duration for local customers.
The project also provides Duke Energy with another operating example of how existing utility-scale batteries can gain additional value through controls and distribution-system islanding rather than being used only for energy shifting or peak management.
If similar configurations can be applied elsewhere, utility-owned storage could increasingly serve both systemwide grid functions and local resilience needs without requiring a separate backup system for every individual customer.
Jonas Muthoni is Editor-in-Chief of Microgrid Media, where he oversees reporting and analysis on microgrids, energy storage, distributed energy resources, data center power demand, grid modernization, resilience, renewable energy, and electricity policy and markets. His work focuses on the infrastructure, technologies, and regulatory developments reshaping the power system.
As Editor-in-Chief, Jonas leads Microgrid Media’s editorial strategy and standards, including story selection, source verification, technical accuracy, and the development of original reporting and analysis. His coverage draws on regulatory filings, government records, utility and company disclosures, technical documentation, and independent industry sources to explain significant developments across the evolving energy system.
