Rate hike of nearly 17% proposed for Duke Energy Carolina customers

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Rate hike of nearly 17% proposed for Duke Energy Carolina customers

Published: Friday, April 14th, 2023 @ 8:15 pm
By: Carolina Journal ( More Entries )

    Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the Carolina Journal. The author of this post is Theresa Opeka.

    Duke Energy Carolinas wants to increase residential rates for its customers between 16.2 and 16.6% by Sept. 1 and an additional 0.4% by Jan. 1. The utility is also seeking a rate hike for commercial and industrial customers. Rates would increase by 12.1% and 15.2%.

    The increase is outlined in a proposal filed with state regulators, the N.C. Utilities Commission, which has the authority to approve the rate increase. Hearings on the proposal are scheduled for later in March.

    Duke Energy Carolinas serves about 2 million households and businesses in central and western North Carolina, including Charlotte, Durham, and the Triad.

    The utility cited a sharp rise in fuel prices in 2022 driven by increased national and international demand and tight supplies as the reason for the proposed rate hike.

    "Fuel costs to generate electricity have more than tripled over the last year, which is a challenge faced by energy providers across the country," said Kendal Bowman, Duke Energy's North Carolina president in a press release. "Our rates in North Carolina are far below the national average, and we're doing everything we can to keep customer bills as low as possible."

    If approved by the North Carolina Utilities Commission, the total monthly impact of these rate changes for a residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per month would be an increase of $19.10, from $115.01 to $134.11 ($133.68 for September-December).

    There are ways to keep the rates down, including a House bill in its early stages.

    "The General Assembly provided a measured way to temper excessive energy costs in H.B. 951, which is still in the implementation process," said Andre Believeau, Strategic Projects & Govt. Affairs Manager at the John Locke Foundation. "However, rate increases of some kind were always going to happen when we start considering the externality of reducing carbon emissions, coupled with economic factors like inflation and outsourcing American energy. H.B. 951 provides a way for reasonability to limit how high those costs will go, so long as Governor Cooper's NCUC implements it correctly and the Biden Administration gets serious about American infrastructure and reliability."

    If NCUC approves the hike, it will be the second year in which Duke Energy Carolinas has raised rates.

    Last year's Duke Energy Carolinas fuel filing increase was 9.6% for residential customers, stemming from what the company says was a post-COVID burst in economic activity and a $327 million under-collection.

    The company's other North Carolina utility - Duke Energy Progress - will make its annual fuel filing in June.

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Concerned Taxpayer said:

( April 15th, 2023 @ 12:12 pm )

Big Government Bob is just parroting Chicken Little. The climate alarmists have made dozens of dire predictions that have already passed the time when they were supposed to come true, but not a single one of them has come true or even come close. The slimate alarmists are con men, who are the modern day Chicken Little. Big Government Bob is just enough of a gullible fool to keep believing the nonsense predictions they spout.

None of the climate alarmist leaders seem to actually believe this crap they spew on rising sea levels. Al Gore and Barack Obama have both bought multi-million dollar oceanfront mansions in recent years. They put their own money a very different place from where their mouth is. So why is Big Government Bob so gullible to believe it?

Actual history disproves their theory anyway. The Earth periodically rotates between centuries-long warm spells and cold spells. The last warm spell, known to climatologists as the Medieval Warm Period was much warmer than today, and we know where all the low lying cities in Europe were located then, and NONE of them recording any rise in sea level from the global warming of that period.

One can look back even farther to the longest and hottest warm period the Earth has experienced, the Holocene Maximum, which correponds with the Bronze Age of human development. Again, we know where the ancient Greek and other cities were located during that period, and those locations show no probleme with a rising sea level and none of the ancient writings say anything about one.

So, I call BS on you, Big Government Bob.

Big Bob said:

( April 15th, 2023 @ 9:38 am )

If your property is underwater, what difference does it make?

Concerned Taxpayer said:

( April 15th, 2023 @ 8:24 am )

This electric rate hike comes from ONE thing, NC's Green New Deal, HB951, and we will be seeing a lot more of these if the experience of the pushing of "green energy" elsewhere is any indiciator. I guess it is called "green" energy because it takes a whole lot more "green" out of the wallets of electric ratepayers. Germany is a good example. Since Merkel's "Energy Transition" German residenntial electric rates skyrocketed with continual rate hikes until they were three times what North Carolinians pay. This is where the RINOs and Cooper are taking North Carolina and it is disgusting.

What is even more disgusting is that the local state senator, Jim Perry, was a big player in pushing this Green New Deal on North Carolina. Perry is a special interest hack who cares nothing for the consumer. This liberal RINO needs to be voted out of office next year.

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