Renewable solar energy represents a key component of Duke Energy’s plan to be carbon neutral by 2050, but a surprise order from the chairman of the North Carolina Utilities Commission directed the company to halt its procurement of new solar energy resources until a new carbon plan is approved later this year.
Clean energy advocates called the directive illegal and tantamount to an outright cancellation of this year’s procurement process, given that the deadline for the commission to approve a new carbon plan is Dec. 31.
If the order stands, 770 megawatts of generating capacity that was expected to be added to North Carolina’s electric grid by the early 2030s could be wiped out with no clear alternatives to make up for it.
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That’s enough electricity to power more than 100,000 homes, and the loss could portend bad news for North Carolina residents whose electric bills are already rising as Duke attempts to accommodate surging demand from “large load customers” such as AI data centers.
Nick Jimenez, an attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, called the order “baffling,” in part because it came on the heels of a Duke Energy report which revised its 10-year forecast of electricity demand from large load customers by an increase of more than 2,000 megawatts.
“You've got this two gigawatt increase in load, and then two weeks later the commission says ‘actually, let's cancel this large procurement,’” Jimenez told Carolina Public Press.
The Carolinas Clean Energy Business Association, a trade association that represents independent power producers (the types which might have submitted bids for the solar energy resources procurement), shared Jimenez’s concerns about the long-term impact of the order.
“At a time when there is incredible demand for new, fast electricity, the better part of a gigawatt would not be available to the public,” CCEBA executive director Chris Carmody said.
“That has implications for price and for reliability. Customers are seeing their electric bills go up, and this would not help them.”
Duke Energy spokesperson Bill Norton said that the company was still evaluating how the order might impact its long-term resource planning, and emphasized that solar energy projects already approved for development through 2030 will not be affected.
“Solar and solar paired with storage remain a key part of our diverse energy mix,” Norton said.
What is the NC Carbon Plan?
The carbon plan at the center of the order originates from a 2021 law requiring the state’s electric utilities to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. Neutrality means any carbon being emitted into the atmosphere is offset by an equal level of carbon removal.
That state law, which was a bipartisan effort to address the negative effects of climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions, directed the Utilities Commission to develop a plan to reach carbon neutrality and update it every two years.
Duke Energy, which operates as a near-monopoly in North Carolina, has significant influence over the carbon plan. The drafting process involves Duke filing a proposed plan which is then tweaked and approved by the commission.
The commission issued its first carbon plan order at the end of 2022, and in 2024, it approved the first biennial update to the carbon plan.
Duke Energy submitted its proposal for the 2026 iteration of the carbon plan last fall, and the commission has until the end of this year to hold hearings, make necessary changes and issue a final order.
Unintended consequences for solar energy
In the 2024 carbon plan, the commission directed Duke to conduct competitive procurements in 2025 and 2026 targeting 3,460 megawatts of new solar energy resources which would connect to the grid and be placed into service by 2031.
Duke conducted a 2025 procurement which achieved half of that goal, but this year it tried to scale back with a procurement target of only 770 megawatts of solar, citing increased costs and the expiration of federal tax credits for solar projects by 2030.
In a filing dated March 17, Duke urged the commission to quickly accept its new procurement target so that it could open the bidding process by July.
Utilities Commission chairman Bill Brawley issued a response on April 23 in which he declared that any change to an existing procurement target should be based upon a commission-approved carbon plan.
However, he did give credence to the idea that the solar energy resources procurement should be adjusted to reflect changing circumstances, including the state legislature’s recent rollback of a benchmark goal to significantly reduce carbon emissions by 2030.
So rather than making Duke proceed with its 2026 solar procurement under the previous target, Brawley instead ordered the utility to stop its procurement altogether until the new carbon plan is approved.
Since competitive procurement is a months-long process and the commission likely won’t issue its 2026 carbon plan order until late in the year, this order “effectively cancels the procurement,” Jimenez said.
Is chair’s unilateral action legal?
The commission’s order to stop procurement of resources to generate solar energy was atypical in that Brawley appeared to be the sole author without input from the four other commissioners. Brawley, a former Republican member of the state legislature, was elected as chairman last year following a 2024 state law which flipped the commission to a Republican-appointee majority.
The CCEBA filed a petition for the commission to reconsider its order, arguing that Brawley lacked the legal authority to unilaterally change a prior commission order and that such an action would first require notice and a public hearing.
Jeff Hughes, a former commissioner whose term ended in 2025, also found Brawley’s order peculiar, telling CPP that he “can’t explain how or why it was done this way.”
“If I was on the commission, I wouldn't have been happy not participating in this type of decision,” he added.
Hughes was nominated to the commission in 2019 by then-governor Roy Cooper. He now works at the Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability as a climate leader in residence.
A spokesperson for Gov. Josh Stein also criticized Brawley’s order in an email to CPP.
“Governor Stein knows that North Carolinians are already struggling with rising energy costs, and the NC Utilities Commission Chairman’s unilateral decision will only make things more expensive,” the spokesperson said.
“In a time when energy affordability and sustainability are top of mind for North Carolinians, this decision moves our state in the wrong direction.”
An uncertain path forward on solar energy
The commission has yet to issue an official response to the CCEBA’s petition, and its general counsel James West told CPP that he couldn’t comment on pending legal matters.
Carmody said his organization didn't receive any explanation of the order before or after it was issued. Duke Energy also seemed to have been caught off guard, but it hasn’t weighed in on how it would like the commission to proceed.
“We’re concerned about the message that this sends to the private sector,” Carmody said.
“Whether you're bringing new generation or new energy technology or something else to the state, it's not encouraging when a regulatory body unilaterally ceases your business.”
The SELC, representing a group of other environmental advocacy organizations, supported the CCEBA with a filing of its own. That filing additionally argued that the commission’s deferral of the 2026 solar procurement was arbitrary and capricious, wasn’t based in evidence and would be costly for consumers.
Solar energy is critical as a lower-cost resource, the SELC argued, especially because other energy options like nuclear or gas-powered facilities aren’t viable as near-term replacements for the lost solar energy because of development timelines and volatile cost fluctuations.
“The commission’s theory was that the cost of solar might have gone up,” Jimenez said.
“Well, that’s ignoring the very high likelihood that the cost of other resources that you’ll need to fill in instead has gone up even more.”
This article first appeared on Carolina Public Press and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.