North Carolina House Republican lawmakers and Duke Energy’s representatives spent months in closed-door meetings hammering out an energy bill that somehow emerged, politically speaking, without any energy. Despite efforts to build up suspense about House Bill 951, the measure landed with a thud last week.
Duke's 15-Year Plan
Duke Energy’s Integrated Resource Plans (IRPs) are the 15-year plans the corporation must submit to the NC Utilities Commission every 2 years. From 2013 to 2015, NC WARN published A Responsible Energy Future for North Carolina, a clean alternative to Duke’s IRPs. In 2017, engineer Bill Powers analyzed the state’s electricity generation and proposed a cleaner path. Learn more about Bill’s NC Clean Path 2025 report. In 2021, Bill reviewed Duke’s IRPs, finding cost distortions and misleading reports of how much power is available — all serving to advance Duke’s case for building new gas at a time when climate change demands rapid decarbonization and when solar paired with storage is beating gas on both economics and reliability. Learn more and tell the Commission to reject Duke’s 2020 IRP.
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As climate emergency grows more urgent, Duke Energy seeks to supersize CO2 pollution — NC Policy Watch
Energy giant must halt planned fossil fuel expansion, aggressively embrace renewable energy, storage, conservation
AG calls on NC regulators to reject Duke Energy long-term plant construction plans — Charlotte Business Journal
The N.C. Attorney General’s office has called on state regulators to reject Duke Energy Corp.’s proposed long-term plant construction plans, despite a debate over whether regulators have the authority to do so.
Solar March Madness: US 20, Duke Energy 6 — NC WARN
Duke leaders keep conning the public with new greenwashing ads. New federal data show that nearly 20% of U.S. electricity* generation in 2020 came from renewable power – up from the earlier figure of 18% cited in NC WARN’s ongoing ad campaign.
Climate watchdogs challenge Duke Energy’s polluting 15-year plan — Facing South
Date on which the North Carolina Utilities Commission (NCUC) will hold a public hearing about Duke Energy’s latest Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), a biennial blueprint for how the company intends to generate electricity for the next 15 climate-critical years: 3/16/2021
Watchdog accuses Duke energy of misleading state regulators — WXII
Great TV story exposing Duke Energy on bogus data given to regulators to justify building 50 gas-fired power units. The public hearing is actually March 16.
Duke Energy Faces Challenges to its Push for New Natural Gas Plants — GreentechMedia
Duke Energy’s plan to build gigawatts of new natural gas generators to supply its grid over the next 15 years has already drawn fire from clean energy advocates, who say it violates the utility’s long-range decarbonization goals and could leave customers paying for power plants that can’t economically compete with cleaner alternatives.
Add 16 GW solar, 10 GW storage in North Carolina, says alternative resource plan — pv magazine
Duke Energy’s “flawed modeling assumptions” for its 2020 North Carolina resource plan favor new natural gas capacity over new renewables and storage, and the utility’s resource scenarios are “not least-cost,” says a regulatory filing from the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association and the Carolinas Clean Energy Business Association.
Legal Challenge: Duke Energy Plans Would Supersize Climate Pollution, Waste Billions on Unused Power Plants — News Release
NC WARN and the Center for Biological Diversity have filed a legal challenge to Duke Energy’s plan to build scores of gas-fired power plants in the Carolinas even though huge amounts of excess generation already sit unused even during the worst winter weather.
See coverage by WXII
Duke Energy gets an ‘F’ from environmental group — WXII
Critics say that Duke’s plan for the next 15 years is heading in the wrong direction. Climate and Energy Watchdog Jim Warren, who heads NC WARN calls Duke’s utility plan “Ruinous.”