If all the solar panels from industrial-scale electric plants in North Carolina were laid end to end, they would stretch from Raleigh to San Francisco and back nearly four times. Yet the state has no plan to handle the 475,000 tons of panels once they wear out and…
Benefit or boondoggle? That’s the billion-dollar question. North Carolina surpassed the $1 billion mark in renewable energy investment tax credits issued in 2018 — three years after the lucrative subsidy program to stimulate solar development expired. Taxpayers have picked up the bill, and could be on…
Duke Energy intends to challenge a state Department of Environmental Quality order to excavate all its coal ash pits, saying it would impose undue financial harm. Duke, one of the nation’s largest power providers, announced its decision in a news release…
Roughly $1.25 billion. That’s how much Duke Energy customers will be overpaying for electricity over the next 10 to 15 years. We can thank North Carolina law — and Gov. Roy Cooper — for the higher bills that come with long-term solar energy contracts Duke has been forced to accept.
As the Cooper administration engaged in negotiations involving the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a national governors’ group warned a Cooper adviser against a state agency taking action comparable to extortion. The warning came in a Dec. 8, 2017, email from a National Governors Association staffer to Cooper energy policy adviser Jeremy…
North Carolina officials insist the state is prime territory for the next big industrial manufacturing facility — most likely an automaker. Auto assembly plants can attract billions of dollars in investment, create hundreds of high-paying jobs, and revitalize a local economy. But we keep losing the competition for…
Duke Energy’s $13 billion plan to modernize the power grid would raise average residential bill by 25 percent, or roughly $26 a month per household.
Nuclear power advocates are jumping on the climate change bandwagon. They are repackaging the industry as a clean energy alternative, and making a case for government subsidies. The Joint Legislative Commission on Energy Policy got that pitch in April. Nuclear energy representatives said nuclear plants…
House Bill 589, passed earlier this year by the General Assembly, could put allies of North Carolina’s renewable energy industry somewhat at ease, said Randy Wheeless, a spokesman for Duke Energy, at a Nov. 1 meeting of renewable advocates. The new law lets…
Consumers are paying a lot more than they realize to prop up the renewable energy industry in North Carolina, even though a section of their bills supposedly lists the cost. That’s the contention of Rep. Chris Millis, R-Pender. Last week he introduced a bill requiring a study of the…
