Duke Energy’s Roxboro gas plant would burden North Carolinians with pollution, excessive costs

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Monopoly utility Duke Energy’s proposal for a new methane gas-fired power plant near Roxboro in Person County, North Carolina, fails to comply with federal law and would saddle customers with excessive costs and climate pollution, according to a brief filed by the Southern Environmental Law Center at the North Carolina Utilities Commission. SELC represents the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, Sierra Club, and Natural Resources Defense Council in the proposed methane gas plant proceeding.

“Duke’s expensive proposal is part of its broader plan to recklessly delay compliance with state climate law, gambling North Carolinians’ money and our future,” said SELC Senior Attorney David Neal. “We urge the utilities commission to deny Duke’s plan and implement strict guardrails protecting customers if it approves the gas plant’s construction and operation.”

Significantly, Duke Energy’s proposal sets forth an unrealistic pathway for complying with a federal law that requires carbon pollution limits for new methane gas plants. The utility’s proposed workarounds – including limiting how much the new power plant operates or attempting to convert the plant to run on hydrogen – could send customers’ costs soaring.

Expert witnesses in the proceeding previously testified that Duke had inadequately planned for the plant’s construction and risked further burdening customers with the cost of project delays.

Shelley Robbins, senior decarbonization manager at the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said, “The consequences of Duke’s poor planning, particularly with respect to federal carbon pollution limits, will fall on North Carolinians, not the utility. Duke will leave all of us on the hook for a big, methane gas-guzzling power plant that exposes us to gas price spikes in the near term before it risks becoming a stranded asset in just the next decade.”

The proposed power plant would rely on methane gas, which pollutes and warms the climate at 80 times the rate of carbon dioxide in the short term when leaked to the atmosphere. Duke’s own modeling, advocates noted, reveals a diminishing need in coming decades for methane gas as the use of clean energy resources like solar, wind, energy efficiency, and battery storage expands.

A bipartisan North Carolina law requires Duke to take the least-cost pathway toward reducing carbon pollution by 70% from 2005 levels by 2030. But the regulated monopoly has proposed a massive buildout of expensive, polluting methane gas-fired power plants across the Carolinas while delaying compliance for five to eight years past 2030.

“Duke’s plan for another costly, polluting gas-fired plant is out of step with the needs of its customers, who already experience the devastating impacts of climate change,” said Luis Martinez, senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “Methane gas worsens air quality and helps drive the climate emergency, halting progress at a time when state law requires decisive, forward-looking climate action.”

“We encourage the utilities commission to protect North Carolinians’ well-being and their wallets by rejecting Duke’s half-baked plan,” said Mikaela Curry, campaign manager at the Sierra Club. “Unlike methane gas, clean energy resources including solar power, wind, battery storage, and energy efficiency offer long-term, affordable solutions that safeguard our communities and future generations.”