Orange County Communities Call For Improved Climate Reform from Duke Energy

As more communities across North Carolina have begun to adopt greenhouse gas reduction goals, the local governments of Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Hillsborough and Orange County recently joined other towns, counties, and cities pushing for Duke Energy to take a stronger approach to address climate change.

Duke Energy is required to submit an updated 15-year Integrated Resource Plan to the North Carolina Utilities Commission every two years. The company’s 2020 IRP, released in September of last year, has drawn criticism from counties, town, cities, and corporations and sparked legal action from climate justice groups NC WARN and the Center for Biological Diversity.

While the details of the various critiques of Duke’s plan slightly differ, the shared notion between them is the company plans too little of a shift towards relying on renewable energy sources and proposes the creation of too many new gas plants.

According to the IRP, Duke currently gets 5 percent of its electricity from renewable sources and projects to raise this to 14 percent by 2035. Not only is the current national average already 19.8 percent, but President Biden’s climate plan requires utilities to rely entirely on carbon-pollution free energy sources by 2035. In addition, the climate justice groups that filed a legal challenge against the company say that Duke exaggerated the costs of renewables and provided cost estimates for their new proposed gas plants that are half of what Duke actually paid for recent construction.

Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Hillsborough and Orange County joined seven other towns, cities, and counties across the state in co-signing a letter sent to the North Carolina Utilities Commission about the 2020 IRP. The letter details the various communities’ greenhouse gas reduction goals and breaks down the changes these places want to see in Duke Energy’s plans in order to make their goals feasible.

“Hillsborough and other local governments across the state recognize that climate change requires swift and meaningful action to reduce the amount of carbon in our atmosphere, protect vulnerable communities, and prevent the worst-case scenarios,” Hillsborough Mayor Jenn Weaver said in a press release. “We are urging Duke Energy to take these actions as a necessary leader in moving our state to a clean energy future as soon as possible.”

The changes encouraged in the letter are organized into five main comments. These communities first ask Duke to retire its coal power plants as soon as possible and solicit input from historically disadvantaged communities when developing plans regarding energy efficiency and customer affordability. Then, the letter requests for the company to expand their renewable energy sources in order to help address the renewable energy, climate, and equity goals of the various communities.

The fourth comment encourages Duke to conduct a technological and economic analysis of the transmission investments needed to make the increased use of renewable energy sources possible. Lastly, the co-signers of the letter ask the company to reassess the forecast for the number of electrical vehicles likely to be in use in the future.

The full letter can be read here. Additional information about Duke Energy can be found on their website.

Photo via Duke Energy.

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