North Carolina legislators overrode Gov. Josh Stein’s veto of a bill that eliminates the state’s interim 2030 carbon-reduction target and makes it easier for Duke Energy to make customers pay for new power plants that are still under construction.
Senate Bill 266 became law on Tuesday when the House voted 74-46 to ignore the governor’s objections. He said the measure will “send the wrong signal to businesses that want to be part of our clean-energy economy.”
The Senate had already cast the necessary three-fifths of those present and voting on Tuesday to enact the bill despite Stein’s veto.
Duke officials welcomed the decision. “We appreciate bipartisan efforts to keep costs as low as possible for customers and enable the always-on energy resources like carbon-free nuclear power our communities need,” spokesman Garrett Poorman said.
In the legislature, advocates including Senate leader Phil Berger argued that the removal of the 2030 interim carbon goal will save money for both Duke Energy and its customers.
They point to a legislatively-requested N.C. Public Staff analysis that posits the move could chop about $13 billion, in present-value terms, from Duke’s list of construction needs through 2050. Power bills are likely to rise regardless. Without the bill, regulators thought a 3.5% annual increase at the consumer level was likely. With it, that estimate drops to 3.2%.
Critics argue that by incentivizing Duke to lean more heavily on natural gas, the change could instead trigger even-higher power-bill increases if the price of gas spikes significantly.
Supporters of the bill have downplayed that worry, but the spot price of gas has tended to spike during major wars or economic crises. The most recent such run-up came in 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine.
The state is retaining its goal of seeing power generation become carbon-neutral by 2050. Hence, Duke is still under pressure to retire its coal-fired power plants.
North Carolina’s population growth and addition of data caters and manufacturing plants is creating increasing pressure to add power-generation capacity.
Berger has said bill sponsors want to make it easier for Duke to use nuclear power to meet those demands, but the Public Staff analysis saw little likelihood of a major change in the utility’s utilization of reactors before the 2040s.
The major short-term programmatic changes the analysis anticipates would point toward reductions in potential solar-power projects, and in increased use of gas-fired “combustion turbines” — jet engines hooked up to generators, basically. Duke recently signaled it plans to seek permission to build two of them near Salisbury.
The advantage of turbines is that operators can spin them up quickly to meet peak demand. The disadvantage, researchers from Duke University say, is that they’re less efficient.
Tuesday’s vote drew criticism from environmental groups, including the N.C. Sierra Club. The new law “will be bad for North Carolinians’ bank accounts and health,” said Chris Herndon, the chapter director. “Energy costs and pollution will increase so that Duke Energy can make more money.”
Noting that energy demand and electricity prices are soaring, Caitlin Vincent, director of Southeast state affairs at the Solar Energy Industries Association, said “the legislature could not have picked a worse time to play favorites and backtrack on years of clean energy leadership that has spurred billions of dollars of private investment in North Carolina.”
SB 266 originally passed the House with support from 11 Democrats.
Seven of those 11 Democrats switched and voted to sustain Stein’s veto. Mecklenburg County Reps. Carla Cunningham and Nasif Majeed, and Edgecombe County Rep. Shelly Willingham stuck to their previous position, and voted for the override.
