This is an op/ed by Carson Butts, state director of Conservatives for Clean Energy North Carolina, a Raleigh-based nonprofit.
By Carson Butts
Most media coverage of Duke Energy’s recently revised growth plan has focused on the extra time the Charlotte-based utility will take to meet its carbon-reduction goals and its addition of several more natural gas plants. Widely overlooked is Duke’s rapid and much larger acceleration of clean solar, hydroelectric, and wind energy.
Our group, Conservatives for Clean Energy North Carolina, doesn’t always agree with Duke, nor it with us. But reality has a way of intruding. North Carolina’s surging demand for electricity — partly for the power-hungry data centers and heavy industries flocking here — has made it necessary for Duke to boost power generation every way that it can, as fast as it can, while continuing to phase out coal plants that pollute our air and water.
Duke will build several natural gas plants, which are less dirty than coal although not nearly as clean as solar energy, wind energy, or hydropower. But to expand its power generation as quickly and efficiently as possible, Duke is adding more than twice as much in clean, renewable energy.
Duke’s choice is simple: expand clean energy, or run short of power. Remember the cold, dark Christmas Eve blackout two years ago, when several of its coal and natural gas plants failed?
Duke’s sudden shift toward much more clean energy is a major milestone for North Carolina. The regulated monopoly’s pragmatic expansion of renewable resources readily available across our state should help build stronger support for clean energy in our legislature.
Members newly elected to the General Assembly and lawmakers skeptical of environmentalism should see in Duke’s move what my group has said for years: we need more clean energy not to save the planet, but to keep the lights on. It’s clearer than ever before that we must have more wind, solar, and hydropower to meet our state’s soaring energy demand. Period, full stop.
A growing necessity
Don’t take my word for it. Here’s what Duke Energy itself said about its new expansion plan, which the N.C. Utilities Commission approved in a recent ruling:
“We believe this is a constructive outcome that allows us to deploy increasingly clean energy resources at a pace that protects affordability and reliability for our customers. The order confirms the importance of a diverse, all-of-the-above approach that is essential for long-term resource planning and helps us meet the energy needs of our region’s growing economy.”
Duke’s expansions of clean energy are large, and coming fast: 7,000 megawatts of new solar and wind energy by 2031, 2,700 megawatts of battery storage by then, 1,200 megawatts of onshore wind by 2033, further expansion of hydropower, and development of offshore wind, which could reach 2,400 megawatts by 2035.
That’s a clean energy boost of almost two and a half times the additional 5,620 megawatts Duke plans to generate at new natural gas plants, while keeping its electricity rates below the national average. Meanwhile, Duke aims to add 600 megawatts of advanced nuclear capacity by 2035.
As conservatives, we believe Duke’s additional renewable energy assets and others like them in the private sector will promote economic development that brings jobs and investment to communities across our state while reducing air and water pollution.
National security
There’s another pressing reason why military-heavy North Carolina should continue diversifying our energy sources: increasing political instability overseas threatens global energy markets.
Russia’s unprovoked war to conquer Ukraine continues. Israel faces enemies on all sides, led by oil-rich Iran. China threatens military and energy insecurity in Asia. Germany, Europe’s largest economy, struggles with an ongoing energy shortage, rising electricity prices, political upheaval, and a prolonged economic recession.
America’s production of oil and natural gas has risen for years, but not enough to keep up with increasing energy demand in North Carolina and elsewhere. As even Duke now makes plain, clean energy is not a fad or a luxury. It’s a necessity growing more urgent by the year.
Fortunately, North Carolina is blessed with abundant sunshine, wind, and water to help fuel our economy, promote national security, and power our busy lives at home, work, school, and play. To keep everyone’s electricity flowing, we have to harness them all.
That’s pragmatic. It’s responsible. And, yes, it’s conservative.
Reach Butts at carson@cleanenergyconservatives.com