HICKORY, N.C. – As North Carolina enters hurricane and summer storm season, Duke Energy says its advanced self-healing technology is helping keep the lights on for thousands of customers in Catawba County.

According to a news release issued June 17, the technology automatically detects outages and reroutes power to restore service faster, and in some cases can prevent outages altogether. Duke Energy compares the system to a GPS that finds an alternate route when a road is blocked.

The company says the technology can reduce the number of customers affected by an outage by as much as 75 percent and can often restore power in less than a minute.

Duke Energy reports that self-healing technology helped avoid more than 2,700 customer outages in Catawba County in 2025. Today, more than 66 percent of Duke Energy customers in the county benefit from the technology, four times the number served in 2022.

Statewide, Duke Energy says nearly 80 percent of its North Carolina customers — about 3 million people — are now served by self-healing technology, an increase of 2 million customers since 2022.

The company says the technology is part of a broader effort to strengthen the electric grid ahead of severe weather. Duke Energy has also upgraded more than 150,000 utility poles, converted about 17,000 wood transmission poles to steel, and trimmed 68,000 miles of vegetation across the Carolinas.

Duke Energy serves approximately 50,000 customers in Catawba County.