By Deon Roberts
Duke Energy is asking to hike electricity rates for Charlotte-area residents by 16.7 percent, part of a move by the utility to pass high costs for cleaning up coal ash sites on to its customers.
The request, submitted Friday to North Carolina regulators, affects rates in a territory that includes western portions of the state. If approved, it would be the first rise in the area since an increase granted to the utility in 2013. Other types of customers, besides residential, would also be affected, for an average increase across all groups of 13.6 percent.
In making Friday’s submission to the North Carolina Utilities Commission, Charlotte-based Duke said it is aiming to cover a variety of costs. Besides coal ash cleanup, those include investments to modernize power plants, generate cleaner power and improve reliability. Duke is seeking to begin charging the higher rates by April 1 but not later than May 1.
For a residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity a month, a monthly bill would increase by $18.72, for a total monthly bill of about $122.68, Duke said. Commercial and industrial customers would see an average increase in rates of 10.9 percent. Combined, increases requested Friday would generate an additional $647 million in annual revenue for the company, according to its own calculations.
The request marks the start of Duke’s efforts to have customers foot the company’s expenses associated with closing coal ash sites around the state.
Duke came under wide scrutiny for coal ash, a byproduct of generating electricity, in 2014 following an ash spill into the Dan River near the Virginia border.
That incident triggered legislation ordering Duke to close all 32 of its North Carolina ash basins. Duke has said its shareholders will be on the hook for fines and cleanup costs associated with the spill itself. The utility has estimated its ash cleanup costs in the Carolinas will total $2.5 billion by 2021.
According to the company, coal ash accounts for 7 percent, or more than half, of the 13.6 percent increase in Friday’s request.
Environmentalists were quick to criticize the move to make ratepayers pay for Duke’s coal ash costs as unfair.
“Duke shouldn’t be allowed to shift the billions it will cost to clean up its coal ash mess away from the company and its shareholders and onto the general public,” Dave Rogers, a North Carolina representative for Sierra Club, said in a statement.
The hike would especially hurt low- and fixed-income individuals, Rogers said, “who shouldn’t have to pay nearly $18 dollars a month before they even flip a switch in their homes, just to bail out Duke for its bad decisions.”
