By the end of this decade, renewables will make up a larger portion of Duke Energy’s generation mix as the utility looks to triple the amount of renewable energy it produces from company power plants and dramatically reduce carbon emissions.
This information was spelled out today in Duke Energy’s 15th Sustainability Report, the company’s annual disclosure on environment, social and governance (ESG) issues.
“Duke Energy has a clear line of sight to reduce our carbon emissions by at least 50% by 2030 and is making terrific progress to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. We’re already a leader in our industry when it comes to low-carbon intensity. This next decade will also be our biggest ever for incorporating thousands of megawatts of new renewable energy generation into our portfolio,” said Katherine Neebe, Duke Energy’s VP of national engagement & strategy, chief sustainability officer and president, Duke Energy Foundation.
Currently, 7% of Duke Energy’s company-owned electrical output comes from wind, solar and hydroelectric plants. That figure is projected to grow to 23% by 2030.
The company is undertaking its aggressive renewable energy build-outs with wind and solar projects currently under construction in Florida, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Texas. Over the next three years, the company will also add 280 MW of pumped storage hydro capacity at its Bad Creek facility in South Carolina.
Duke Energy’s carbon-free generation is also helped by its six nuclear plants in the Carolinas, which produced 35% of its total electrical output in 2020.
Among the other highlights in the report:
- The company is overseeing the largest coal retirement in the industry and disclosed the closing dates for its remaining coal-fired generating units. Since 2010, Duke Energy has retired 51 coal-fired units, according to a chart in the report. An additional unit was retired last month bringing the total to 52.
- For the first time, Duke Energy is sharing expanded employee diversity data, which is filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
- Duke Energy and its Foundation donated more than $8 million to COVID-19 relief efforts during 2020, and more than $2 million was provided by the Duke Energy Foundation to social justice and racial equity organizations.
- The company’s economic development team helped attract nearly 18,000 new jobs and $9.1 billion in capital investment to its service territories.
- The company’s overall carbon dioxide output continues to fall — down more than 40% since 2005. The company aims to reduce its carbon emissions by at least 50% by 2030.
Today’s report continues Duke Energy’s history of transparency and sharing progress on climate change and other ESG matters.
On April 27, the company announced a new comprehensive brand for its non-regulated commercial renewables business — Duke Energy Sustainable Solutions.
The brand unifies products and services offered by several Duke Energy subsidiaries, including Duke Energy Renewables, REC Solar and Duke Energy One. The team will continue to leverage Duke Energy’s deep industry experience to deliver the sustainable energy solutions customers need and want while empowering them to make a measurable impact, help reduce emissions and gain resiliency.
News item from Duke Energy
A look at Duke Energy’s holdings, East of the Mississippi river is where Duke still holds nuclear and a lot of natural gas fired plants with less renewables. West of the Mississippi, Duke has holdings in lots of wind and solar PV farms. Duke has energy asset holdings in 19 States of the United States. I understand Berkshire Hathaway has several shares of “preferred stock” bought up from Duke, when the 2009 recession hurt profits for many entities in the utility business. The point is when one gets into things like FERC rulings, regulations and price setting like actions filed in PUCs (Public Utility Commissions) across the U.S. it is the (stakeholders) that have sway with regulatory and regulation agencies. Duke Energy has stakeholder positions in many States and have clout in swaying rule and regulation actions brought in front of regulatory boards. When Berkshire Hathaway bought Dominion Energy assets for around $10 billion dollars and abandoned the Atlantic Coast Pipeline project, both Dominion and Duke were handed their opinions.
Berkshire Hathaway has already ‘given’ their opinion on how the grid should “work”. Through RMP, Rocky Mountain Power, Berkshire Hathaway believes (all) stakeholders, even residential solar PV adopters should be “allowed” to send energy back on to the grid at the (Wholesale) electricity rate as a credit and buy back electricity from the grid at retail minus the wholesale credit. No additional consideration for individual resident and commercial or industrial solar PV systems or wind farms that is basically a distributed generation resource and allows the utility to enjoy the “avoided costs” of individuals spending their money to pay it forward and have their own generation system installed. The utility doesn’t have to, buy property, get a right of way, file and argue for the construction of the project. The utility doesn’t pay for the system, take out loans or float bonds, insure, maintain or repair or replace failed system components. In distribute generation systems these avoided costs should have a valuation above wholesale energy prices. “Transparency”, only on paper.