While Seeking Rate Hike, Duke Energy Raises CEO Pay
Adding insult to injury, Duke Energy has been hiking the multimillion-dollar paycheck of its CEOs at the same time it is jacking up its electric rates to levels that many customers are struggling to pay.
A new report from the Energy & Policy Institute found that the compensation of electric utility corporations surged last year nationwide amid record profits, rising electric rates, and increasing affordability problems for residential customers. The top ten individual CEOs’ pay in 2025 ranged from Dominion Energy’s Robert Blue at $16 million, up to American Electric Power’s Bill Fehrman at an astonishing $36 million plus.
CEO Answers to Stockholders, Not Customers
As the report points out, regulated utility CEOs answer to the corporate boards of directors selected by stockholders, not to the customers. Incentives in their compensation packages connect to factors such as profitability and share value, not to holding down rates for customers. That shows clearly in the corporate decisions to squeeze hardworking North Carolinians and their families.
As previously reported by NCLCV, Duke Energy has a 15% rate hike request from late 2025 still pending, and announced this month a separate request of $800 million to pay for higher fuel costs this past winter, starting in June.
Neither of Duke Energy’s CEOs during the calendar year 2025 made the top ten list individually, but their combined compensation for the year would have clocked in at spot #6 with a total of over $20 million. Both print and broadcast news in Charlotte this past week featured disgruntled customers describing their higher bills and difficulties in paying them. “These were not people who would qualify for normal assistance programs,” commented Sue Sturgis, the Institute’s Research and Communication Manager. “These are people who previously were able to pay their bills, and suddenly they find themselves unable to pay. So, I think that’s why it’s really registered with people as a real crisis moment.”
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