Judicial Watch: Conservationists Challenge Duke Rate Hikes
Last week, six advocacy groups filed notice with the state Supreme Court that they will appeal the recent North Carolina Utilities Commission decision allowing a Duke Energy Carolina rate hike.
Five of the groups (including the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, and the Natural Resources Defense Council) object to allowing Duke to raise its “residential facility charge.” That’s the base fee paid by every household regardless of energy usage. NCSEA noted that raising the base residential fee regardless of usage “fails to encourage conservation” and reduces customers’ “economic incentive to adopt energy efficiency.”
The sixth appealing group, the Sierra Club, is specifically challenging the commission’s decision to allow Duke to charge customers for Duke’s coal ash cleanup costs. As in state Attorney General Josh Stein’s previously filed appeal, Sierra asserts that stockholders should be responsible for these costs, and adds that Duke is continuing to allow illegal water pollution seeps from the coal ash storage basins in the process of being closed.
