NC WARN News Releases

The NC Utilities Commission has denied our motion to require Duke Energy to stop hiding information critical to the utility’s case to build a large gas-fired power plant in Asheville. This case is a statewide fight – moving toward a public meeting in Raleigh February 22 – with national ramifications over the future of the natural gas industry, the climate crisis and Duke Energy’s business model.

Durham, NC – Duke Energy is withholding from public view large blocks of information critical to the utility’s case to build a large gas-fired power plant in Asheville. NC WARN and The Climate Times today filed a motion calling for regulators to compel Duke to put the data on the table for scrutiny.

Duke is pressing North Carolina regulators for a fast-track, rubber-stamp approval to build a huge gas-fired power plant in Asheville that isn’t even needed, a project that would accelerate the climate crisis and cause statewide electricity rates to jump. North Carolina needs careful and open review, not secretive, fast-track approval of a climate-wrecking, high-dollar power plant that would add to regional glut of supply.

Duke Energy responded to our insistence for careful examination of the need for a large gas-fired power plant near Asheville by pressing the NC Utilities Commission to fast-track its approval of the controversial project. The Utilities Commission shouldn’t cut itself off at the knees by letting Duke avoid a full-blown review process.

State regulators must fully examine Duke Energy’s upcoming application to build a large gas-fired power plant or reject the plant. The project is already highly controversial and will grow more so as the public learns that the plant is not needed, that it would accelerate the climate crisis and would create the risk of soaring electricity rates due to the extreme volatility of natural gas supply and pricing.