Updated plans show Duke Energy’s dangerous intention to burn dirty coal for several more decades, add massive amounts of fracked gas

RALEIGH, N.C. — Duke Energy wants to burn dirty, uneconomic coal for several more decades and add massive amounts of dangerous fracked gas in North and South Carolina, according to its latest filings with state regulators. 

The country’s largest utility on Tuesday filed updated long term energy plans with the N.C. Utilities Commission for its subsidiaries Duke Energy Progress and Duke Energy Carolinas. The plans show the corporation’s aim to keep burning coal until as late as 2048 and to add 12 gigawatts of fracked gas in the Carolinas—one of the most aggressive gas buildout proposals in the nation.

The plans also give short shrift to solar, even though North Carolina ranks #2 in the nation for that resource, outpacing even Sun Belt states like Arizona, Nevada and Texas. In the Duke Energy Progress service area, which spans about 32,000 square miles and supplies electricity to 1.5 million customers, the company proposes to add a meager 1.5 gigawatts of new solar over the next 15 years, and essentially no new solar after 2025. 

Duke Energy is required to file full energy plans in even numbered years, and updates to those plans in odd numbered years. These just-filed 2019 plans were likely completed before the company was ordered last week by the NCUC to develop full resource plans for 2020 that take a hard look at how coal in particular measures up to alternative resources, such as solar, battery storage and energy efficiency. 

Commissioners directed Duke to present an analysis of whether continuing to operate its aging, coal-burning power plants is actually the least cost option when compared to renewables, and to include the full costs for disposal of toxic coal ash in making any comparison. Commissioners also directed Duke to model what it would take to meet the targets in Gov. Roy Cooper’s Executive Order 80 to fight the climate crisis by reducing statewide greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent below 2005 levels by 2025.

In response, Dave Rogers, Southeast deputy regional campaign director for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign, issued the following statement:

“It’s hard to stomach these proposals, especially in the middle of hurricane season, when Duke knows good and well that burning fossil fuels is poisoning our air and water, heating up the planet, and making the climate crisis worse. Burning dirty coal for several more decades, creating more tons of toxic coal ash that they don’t want to be responsible for cleaning up, and adding massive amounts of fracked gas to the mix is reckless and unacceptable. 

“These proposals make it even clearer that the N.C. Utilities Commission was right to order Duke do a thorough analysis of how clean, safe, renewable resources really stack up to their outdated, polluting energy model—because it’s clear from these absurd filings that Duke had no plans to do it on their own.”