Stein’s Energy Task Force Identifies Main Drivers in Interim Report

Recommendations from Governor Stein’s Energy Policy Task Force focus on ensuring that North Carolinians have affordable, reliable, and clean energy, even while demand for energy continues to grow. The Task Force released its interim report February 15.

“As demand for energy grows, families and businesses need to be able to count on dependable, sustainable, and affordable power,” said Governor Josh Stein. “I’m grateful to the task force for its thoughtful work to inform policies that protect affordability, reliability, and sustainability, and I look forward to our state’s building on this progress in the months ahead.” 

Gas Costs & Data Centers Drive Increases in Electric Bills

The report reveals the projected trends in energy demand and cost of electricity as well as the principal causes. In sum, between 2010 and 2020, the average NC monthly residential electricity bill was relatively stable, but it increased by approximately 22 percent between 2020 and 2025. From 2017 to 2024, nearly two-thirds of the increase in residential bills was due to increasing fuel costs, principally dirty methane gas.

Looking ahead, the report notes growth in the demand for electricity will accelerate, driven by factors including power-hungry new data centers. In looking at major economic development projects in the state’s business recruitment pipeline, data centers account for 80% of the projected energy demand, indicating that data centers have uniquely high energy needs compared to traditional industries. 

Residential electric costs are projected by the investor-owned monopoly utilities to soar in tandem with that energy demand growth, rising by 40% to 70% over the next 15 years. The report discusses a number of mechanisms which could decouple that connection and encourage data centers to generate their own power with clean energy sources or buy it directly from sources which do. Improving energy efficiency by residential and small businesses involves another important set of tools. 

Report Considers Climate Consequences

Meanwhile, the report notes that power generation emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas driving climate change, declined by 50% since 2005. However, under Duke Energy projected demand growth and recommended mix of generation sources, carbon emissions will begin to grow again through the mid-30s, and only then start to fall again.

Major Takeaways

From both environmental and affordability perspectives, the takeaways from the first report of the Task Force are clear:

• Data centers in particular must pay their own way or go elsewhere. The attitude that Virginia-style growth in data centers is a fact of life that must be tolerated regardless of costs is unacceptable. 
• The continuing rise in fossil-fueled electricity generation is also not inevitable, but is the result of utility-chosen change in recommended generation mix. The public does not have to accept a decade of huge increases in their electric bills in order to satisfy Duke’s preference for gas-fired generation instead of increasing electricity from solar, wind, and battery storage.
• Attorney General Jeff Jackson has intervened in the latest Duke Energy rate increase request cases in order to protect the public. He has a perfect opportunity to use the Task Force’s first report to drive home the need to require Duke Energy to change course now.