Duke Energy seeks to block regulatory and media/public debate over NC WARN’s sweeping solar alternative to Dukes’ PRO-Carbon Plan
The renowned Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) and the University of Texas-Austin (UTA) each have new studies showing that using clean energy resources at the local level can save customers millions, protect against power outages and avoid building costly and climate-wrecking fossil fuel power plants and transmission infrastructure.
The studies further boost NC WARN’s new Sharing Solar proposal to state regulators that will expand local solar-plus-storage (SPS) by paying for new installations on roofs, parking lots and more through the rate system – the way we’re now all forced to pay for dirty power.
The Sharing Solar approach will benefit all Duke Energy customers as the fastest, cheapest and fairest way to tackle the climate crisis and soaring power bills.
With evidentiary hearings over Duke Energy’s (Pro) Carbon Plan set to begin Monday at 2pm at the NC Utilities Commission, it’s likely that both Duke and the commission will keep trying to avoid debating SPS, as they have since NC WARN first proposed it in 2017.
Duke continues to suppress rooftop solar and other climate solutions in favor of high-risk, high-dollar fossil fuel and failure-prone nuclear gambles. With few exceptions, Duke maintains successful pressure on media bosses to keep alternatives to Duke’s plans out of the public eye despite good journalists trying to do their jobs.
The new RMI study describes how Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) are scaling up among many utilities nationally and can quickly offset the need for new gas-fired power plants and save huge amounts of money. VPPs are where utilities pay residential and business customer for the right to draw from their SPS batteries and sometimes even electric vehicles during periods of high system-wide demand. VPPs are part of our Sharing Solar proposal.
NC WARN recently cited earlier work by RMI and others promoting the enormous benefits of generating and storing electricity where it’s being used instead of going along with a prodigious national PR campaign by Duke and others pressing to spend decades and trillions of dollars gambling on massive and controversial transmission projects.
“The cheapest, most reliable power can be produced renewably and produced at or near the customers…” Clean energy guru Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute.
The deceptive utility campaign also claims SPS can’t help slow the climate crisis, but NC WARN has proven that North Carolina has over twice as much space for solar on roofs, parking lots and other local areas as needed to meet state climate goals.
As reported by Inside Climate News, the Texas researchers found that “batteries matched with rooftop solar can lead to 40 percent savings for all customers of a utility.” And that reducing demand for electricity reduces the need to add new wires and grid equipment.
“It lowers the cost for everybody,” the lead UTA author said, a conclusion also reached in a 2021 report from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
ICN’s Dan Gearino reported that SPS isn’t embraced yet by more utilities because they don’t like reducing demand “because utilities make money by selling electricity and building infrastructure.” That’s long been the case with Duke Energy.
While projecting nearly zero rooftop scale solar for years to come – thanks largely its gutting solar net metering – Duke Energy’s pro-carbon plan proposes to gamble some $10 billion on controversial transmission projects that would take many years – if ever built.
Duke’s current game is to keep our state’s best climate approach totally off the NCUC’s table and out of the news. It will be tragic and outrageous if the corporate behemoth remains successful with its anti-democratic strategy.
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Now in its 36th year, NC WARN is building people power in the climate and energy justice movement to persuade or require Charlotte-based Duke Energy – one of the world’s largest climate polluters – to make a quick transition to renewable, affordable power generation and energy efficiency in order to avert climate tipping points and ongoing rate hikes.
