Duke Energy disconnects CATL batteries from Marine Corps base Camp Lejeune

By Michael Martina

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. utility company Duke Energy (NYSE:) has disconnected CATL industrial-scale energy storage batteries on North Carolina Marine Corps base Camp Lejeune after lawmakers and experts raised concerns about the battery supplier’s close links to China’s ruling Communist Party.

A number of Republican and Democratic lawmakers have sounded the alarm over potential security threats posed by Chinese storage batteries, arguing the United States risks building a critical dependency on its top rival for the devices that may have cyber vulnerabilities and put energy grids at risk.

Duke Energy used large-scale batteries made by Chinese company CATL in its facility leased at Camp Lejeune, according to an April press release. That spurred criticism from a group of more than two dozen Republican lawmakers led by Senator Marco Rubio, who last week wrote Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin asking him to “immediately reverse” the installation of the batteries.

Duke Energy has since met with lawmakers, including North Carolina Representative Greg Murphy, about the issue.

“Some concerns about this project have been raised, and, as a result, Duke Energy disconnected these batteries as we work to address these questions,” the company told Reuters in a statement.

But it added that the system was designed with “security in mind” and that the batteries “were not connected in any way to Camp Lejeune’s cyber network or other systems.”

The company did not say how long the batteries would remain offline.

The deployment of such utility-scale battery energy storage systems (BESS) is increasing rapidly in the U.S. as sources of renewable energy come online. Much of that capacity will likely come from Chinese suppliers, which are leaders in the technology and stand to benefit from U.S. renewable energy tax credits.

But such systems require frequent remote operation and telecommunications equipment connected to the batteries could be vulnerable to hacking attempts, say experts.

Democratic senators Mark Warner and Joe Manchin in November urged the Department of Energy to prioritize U.S.-developed energy storage technologies in the face of China’s “near-monopoly” over battery production, which they said poses “substantial defense and economic security vulnerabilities.”