How will Duke Energy pay for $13B grid upgrade?

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Duke Energy Corp.’s ambitious — and embattled ­— plan to spend more than $13 billion over the next decade to modernize its North Carolina power grid will need a legislative jolt to reach the utility’s ultimate goals.

Duke contends modernization offers significant benefits to customers, from greater power reliability to shorter outages to expanded renewable energy and increased personal control of energy use.

“The whole grid improvement area really represents a fork in the road for our industry,” says Robert Sipes, Duke’s vice president of Western Carolinas Modernization and a key player in a new effort to bring business groups, consumer advocates and energy interests on board with the program. “There are a lot of ways it can affect our customers’ electric service, how they receive electric service, the reliability of their electric service.”

Critics agree modernization holds promise, but they also say little in the Power/Forward Carolinas program represents true technological modernization. Its benefits, they contend, appear designed primarily to benefit Duke’s bottom line.

“It could ultimately put the legislature in the position of authorizing what could prove to be the largest (rate) increase ever in North Carolina,” says Peter Ledford, general counsel of the N.C. Sustainable Energy Association.

Which gets to what remains the most hotly disputed feature in a controversial proposal: How Duke will recover the costs from customers.

Read CBJ's cover story here for an in-depth look at the issue.

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