Under the proposal, residential rates for Duke Energy Carolinas customers would increase nearly 12%, and by more than 14% for Duke Energy Progress customers. This is what Duke is proposing:
- Residential rates for DEC customers would increase 11.9% in 2027 and 4% in 2028.
- Residential rates for DEP customers would increase 14.1% in 2027 and 3.5% in 2028.
- Commercial rates for DEC customers would increase 8.7% in 2027 and 3.9% in 2028.
- Commercial rates for DEP customers would increase 9.2% in 2027 and 4.6% in 2028.
- Industrial rates for DEC customers would increase 6.3% in 2027 and 3.4% in 2028.
- Industrial rates for DEP customers would increase 7.4% in 2027 and 4.3% in 2028.
Residential rate hikes are higher, in part, because they fund distribution upgrades that don’t serve industrial customers, according to Duke Energy. That includes the lines that deliver power to homes and neighborhoods.
Shannon Binns, executive director of Sustain Charlotte, said low- to moderate-income households are being squeezed from both sides.
“It is harder to pay the bills when all the bills keep going up, and income is not going up in the same way,” Binns said. His nonprofit returned a $10,000 sponsorship to Duke Energy early this year. The move came after Binns learned that the utility signed on to a letter to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin requesting that the federal agency roll back carbon and coal ash regulations.
Asheville resident Rachel Cohen expressed a similar sentiment toward the rate hikes during a public utility hearing Tuesday night.
“This comes after a year during which Duke Energy made record profits,” Cohen said.
Duke Energy announced $1.4 billion in profits last quarter, up 11% from last fall. The rate increases will need approval from state regulators.
“It was shocking in a sense that they would be so brazen as to ask for such a dramatic increase, which, of course, higher electric bills fall much harder on low- and middle-income households and seniors and people on fixed incomes, given that they just had a record year for profits,” Binns said.
Binns said recent legislation, such as SB 266, has made it easier for the utility to build riskier new nuclear facilities, as well as new natural gas plants, “adding more fossil fuels and the gases that are heating up our planet.”
Duke Energy proposed a new resource plan earlier that would allow the utility to build 9,650 megawatts of new natural gas capacity over the next decade. Duke representatives said the company still aims to reach carbon neutrality by 2050, relying on new nuclear facilities to replace energy generated by new natural gas turbines.
Duke Energy spokesperson Bill Norton said these rate hikes are going toward funding grid hardening and “smart-healing technology.” These projects include “the steel poles along the Swannanoa River that withstood Hurricane Helene.”
“Such grid investments are the majority of the current rate review request,” Norton said in a written response to WFAE. “Other factors in the rate request include weatherization and reliability upgrades for our existing power plants, as well as solar already approved and installed under the initial Carbon Plan. Those are applicable to the current rate case, not to future resource plan projections.”
