The Buncombe County Commissioners have released their agenda for their February 4 meeting. The decision on the master plan for development of the Old Coggins Farm will not be on the agenda for this meeting as we had previously reported in our Jan. 22 cover story (see the article here). We are told this was the original target, but the matter will now likely appear on the Feb.18 agenda — though it is important to note this agenda is not confirmed at this time.
We apologize for any confusion in this matter. Agendas for Buncombe County Commissioner’s meetings are posted in the week prior to the meeting and can be viewed online.
One question I’d have about this development proposal concerns the adequacy of the electric power grid. Duke Energy Progress demonstrated an inability to keep the power on in the Riceville/Swannanoa area during periods of highest peak demand this winter.
On the morning when the temp bottomed out (at my house) at -4, electricity went off before dawn and wasn’t restored until that evening. On the morning that flirted with 0 degrees, power went out just after 7 am and was restored 1-2 hrs later, depending on where you lived. In both instances, the Duke automated outage line blamed “transmission lines.” A MountainX reporter wrote that Duke told him the issue was a substation.
3-400 hundred housing units would add at least 1 MW to the load in this part of the county. What makes us think Duke can handle that?