Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK) is moving forward with a $100 million plan to install solar panels at up to 850 North Carolina sites including homes, schools, stores and factories. Last Friday, the company filed an application with the North Carolina Utilities Commission asking for approval to implement this solar distributed generation program.
If the program is approved by regulators, Duke Energy Carolinas would spend two years installing approximately 20 megawatts (MW) of distributed solar generation on rooftops of customer businesses and homes or on ground sites within the company’s North Carolina service area.
"We believe an initiative of this scope and scale will help us meet the requirement of North Carolina’s new Renewable and Energy Efficiency Portfolio Standard (REPS)," said Keith Trent, group executive and chief strategy, policy and regulatory officer. "This program also will enable us to evaluate the role of distributed generation on our system, and gain experience in owning and operating renewable energy resources."
Duke Energy Carolinas would own and operate the equipment and the power produced by each installation would be used to serve the utility’s customers. Customers who agree to place solar panels at their location would be rewarded based on the size of the installation and the amount of energy it produces.
The company plans to recover its $100 million investment through North Carolina’s new REPS cost recovery mechanism. The company estimates that, over its life, the program will increase the average customer’s bill by no more than 25 cents a month. The average customer uses about 1000 kilowatt-hours of electricity each month.
In 2007, the company supported the development of the REPS. It requires the utility to satisfy 12.5% of its customers’ power needs with renewables or energy efficiency by 2021. The new law has specific provisions for solar energy. Beginning in 2010, 0.02% of the electricity sold to customers in the state, or an equivalent amount of energy, must be produced by solar energy resources. That requirement grows to 0.2% in 2018 and thereafter.
In addition to this proposal, the company is purchasing solar power. Recently, Duke Energy Carolinas announced it would buy approximately 16 megawatts of energy from the nation’s largest photovoltaic solar farm, to be built by SunEdison in Davidson County, N.C. Once operational in late 2010, the farm will supply enough energy to power more than 2,600 homes.
Headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., Duke Energy is, one of the largest electric power companies in the United States, supplies and delivers electricity to approximately 4 million U.S. customers in its regulated jurisdictions. The company has approximately 35,000 megawatts of electric generating capacity in the Midwest and the Carolinas, and natural gas distribution services in Ohio and Kentucky. In addition, Duke Energy has more than 4,000 megawatts of electric generation in Latin America, and is a joint-venture partner in a U.S. real estate company.
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