By Adaure Achumba
Duke Energy has filed a request to the North Carolina Utilities Commission seeking approval for additional rate hikes.
The Charlotte-based utility company wants to charge its customers for costs related to three destructive 2018 storms.
Hurricane Florence, Hurricane Michael and December’s winter storm knocked out power to thousands of people and brought havoc to many of the company’s infrastructure.
Duke estimates the impact of the storms cost about $761 million, with the majority the damage in North Carolina
It plans to propose unspecified rate hikes sometime this year to customers’ bills.
Duke Energy wants to recover about $570 million from North Carolina customers through that rate increase.
Then last month the company filed a request with the NC Utilities Commission to defer storm costs setting the stage for the process toward requesting a rate hike approval.
“Because they were so significant and beyond what the typical storm cost was in an average year, we are just asking them to reserve these costs for future rate requests,” said Meredith Archie, Duke Energy spokesperson.
