A Duke Energy coal fired power plant near Roxboro, NC (Photo: Southern Environmental Law Center)
As winter drags on, families across North Carolina are feeling the cold. For many of the low-income households the North Carolina Justice Center serves, this season doesn’t just mean turning up the heat — it means agonizing choices between paying the power bill or putting food on the table, filling prescriptions or covering rent.
Duke Energy’s latest proposal to raise rates by 15% over two years threatens to make those choices even harder. Fortunately for struggling customers, Gov. Josh Stein and Attorney General Jeff Jackson have intervened in the case, noting that a bill increase of between $23 to nearly $30 more per month would be a significant hardship on many customers. And these requested rate hikes don’t even factor in the price Duke charges customers for fuel, which is layered on top in separate rate proceedings.
These numbers may not seem large to some, but for families already living paycheck to paycheck, they can be devastating. Every extra dollar spent on electricity is a dollar taken from groceries, medicine, or childcare. And when the temperatures drop, electricity usage rises — meaning the burden is even heavier in the months when families can least afford it.
History shows a significant driver of the cost of electricity is the high cost of gas, a burden Duke Energy lays entirely on its customers. Gas prices are unpredictable and expensive, and subject to global market situations beyond our control. Customers are on the hook to pay for every cent of the cost of the fuel to run Duke’s plants. Duke pays nothing. The imbalance of that dynamic is direly unfair to customers.
There are better, more affordable ways Duke could be meeting energy needs in North Carolina. Solar, for example, is the cheapest way to generate electricity. Costs continue to come down year over year. And when you pair solar with batteries, it becomes an even more reliable energy resource. Unlike gas, renewables don’t expose families to global market shocks. They provide stable, predictable costs — exactly what North Carolina families need.
Duke Energy should be taking every possible step to lower cost burdens for its customers, not raising rates while planning to invest customer money in expensive gas plants. Families deserve an energy future — and an energy present — that protects them from high bills, not one that locks them into decades of unaffordable costs.
This winter, as families across our state struggle to stay warm, we urge Duke Energy and regulators to remember who pays the price for every decision. It’s not shareholders — it’s the households already stretched to the breaking point.
Claire Williamson is senior energy policy advocate at the N.C. Justice Center.
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