In February 2013, we published two reports showing a cleaner, cheaper way to meet future energy demand in North Carolina.
A Responsible Energy Future for North Carolina: An Alternative to the Duke Energy-Progress Energy Plans for the Crucial Years 2013–2032 by John Runkle and Jim Warren describes a combination of cleaner, lower-cost alternatives to the long-term plans announced by Duke Energy and Progress Energy. The utilities are using their monopoly status in our state to suppress these alternatives even as they insist on continuing to build polluting fossil fuel plants and extremely costly nuclear plants — and raising our rates repeatedly to do so.
Read full report.
Read summary.
Combined Heat and Power in North Carolina:
Replacing Large Power Plants by Putting Wasted Energy to Work by Anna Moorefield and Jim Warren reveals the tremendous untapped potential of combined heat and power, also known as cogeneration. CHP technology combines the on-site processes of electricity generation and heating or cooling in order to allow a wide range of facilities to use energy far more efficiently — by capturing and putting to work large amounts of thermal energy that is otherwise simply wasted into the environment. Many facilities already have existing waste heat streams and add electric generating equipment to their existing components when adopting CHP technology. Thousands of facilities in North Carolina — including industrial plants, schools, hospitals, prisons, health clubs and hotels — could decrease their annual energy bills by 30% or more by adding CHP to their current heating or electric generation systems.
