Duke Reduces Residential Rate Request, Seeks Special Rate for Large Demand Customers

Facing growing backlash for its huge rate hike requests, Duke Energy is backpedaling on two key items. First, it’s reducing its residential rate hike request. Second, it’s now proposing a special rate for high-demand industrial users.

Just days before the July 7 start of an NC Utilities Commission (NCUC) evidentiary hearing on Duke’s request for an 18% hike in residential customers’ electric rates, Duke announced that it was reducing that request to 11.6%.

In the July 10 edition of his weekly emailed newsletter, NC Attorney General Jeff Jackson commented on the importance of the Duke announcement, as well as the sequence of events that led up to it.

“Four weeks ago, I told you I was pushing back against Duke Energy because they’re trying to raise rates,” said Jackson. “So we filed 700 pages worth of documents from our own independent study to show that they were asking for much more than they needed.” Duke subsequently reduced its request “due to the pushback they received,” noted Jackson. He concluded, “That’s still a hike, and still more than we think they need, but it’s a major move and it tells the Commission something important: Duke’s first number was nowhere close to reasonable.”

New Requirement for Data Centers

Duke’s other major shift – proposing a new requirement for data centers and other major electric users – is structurally even more significant. After months of denying that such a plan was necessary, “In testimony submitted to the North Carolina Utilities Commission in late June, Duke proposed what it calls a ​‘large load tariff’ — a scheme by which data centers and other big electricity customers would pay a minimum bill amount for at least a decade, no matter their actual power use,” reports Canary media. “The transparent setup would replace the confidential, one-off service agreements that Duke makes with large energy users now. The system would result in a ​‘measured set of customer protections’ as data centers flock to the state, the company said.”

“This is a welcome development,” said Munashe Magarira, senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), which is representing the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, the North Carolina Housing Coalition, and other nonprofits at the commission as it weighs Duke’s rate-hike request. “It builds on hard work that’s been done to push the commission to address these issues head on because of the impact large customers will have for the utility, the grid, and society as a whole in North Carolina.” 

Magarira and others note that Duke’s proposal still needs improvement. He pointed to several proposals advanced by the coalition represented by SELC, including requiring that a higher percentage of a customer’s projected demand be paid as a minimum (85% rather than 75%), that the agreements last for longer (20 years rather than 10 or 15), and that they apply to more customers (users of more 25 MW instead of just those over 50 MW).

The coalition of nonprofit groups also advocates for a separate rate class of these large customers. That request has also been made by Attorney General Jackson’s office.

The evidentiary hearing by the NCUC started July 7 and is still underway.

Thank You For Your Advocacy!

Over the last few years, we and our partners have been working hard to build a movement that pushes for clean, affordable energy. With your help, we have generated over 600 advocacy actions just this year. That is 600+ folks calling their legislators, signing petitions, and turning up for events to speak out against Duke Energy’s greed. Thank you for all your effort and support in fighting for affordable clean energy and a healthy, thriving environment.