By John Downey
Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers talks in this week’s print edition of the Charlotte Business Journal about allowing commercial subsidiary Duke Energy Renewables to compete with solar developers in North Carolina to sell power to Duke Energy Carolinas and Duke Energy Progress.
Legal barriers to such sales make that impossible right now, he says. The system the state uses for allowing qualified solar facilities to sell to utilities effectively blocks the utilities from dealing with their affiliated companies.
But he says a mechanism exists in federal law that the state could adopt.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission mandates that utilities looking to purchase power wholesale for distribution to customers can put out requests for proposals for competitive bids.
“So maybe the right answer is to have RFPs for all proposals for us to purchase (solar power) and we only buy the cheapest ones,” he says.
In North Carolina, he says, that change would probably require legislative action.
