Electricity use in North Carolina has been relatively stable for decades. Now, Duke Energy expects usage to surge over the next decade and a half, driven by large-scale economic development projects like data centers.
Gov. Josh Stein last year commissioned an energy policy task force to study what other states and utilities are doing and advise lawmakers and regulators on how to manage energy growth without burdening taxpayers with skyrocketing bills or setting back efforts to clean up the energy grid.
The task force released its first report this week with recommendations including imposing special fees or rates on high electricity users and encouraging solar and battery storage.
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The report said that customer cost burdens have suddenly increased significantly in the past few years. The average monthly residential bill increased by about 22% between 2020 and 2025. The task force expressed concern that these rates will continue to rise as more so-called “bulky customers” are added to the state’s energy grid.
As for who these customers are, the report states that approximately 30% are data centers and 70% are projects in industries such as manufacturing, chemicals, life sciences, food and beverage, and aerospace. However, while data centers account for 30% of expected new customers, they account for 80% of projected energy demand.
As the state prepares for these projects to come online, the task force wants to ensure that energy remains reliable for all customers and that residential customers are not unfairly subsidized by the large infrastructure projects needed to connect high-load customers.
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After six months of meetings, the first recommendations include implementing bulk tariffs or special rates or fees for customers who need a certain amount of energy, incentives to increase load flexibility or programs that encourage customers to shift their electricity use to different times of the day to avoid burdening the grid when energy use is highest, and incentives for on-site generation such as solar and battery storage systems.
Another proposal calls for greater transparency around energy and water use, potentially changing policies to require heavy-duty customers to submit public reports on their water and electricity consumption.
In response to the report, Environmental Defense Fund North Carolina policy director and task force member Will Scott issued a statement calling on lawmakers to take action: “States across the country are enacting rules to ensure data centers pay their fair share and are able to bring their own clean energy, rather than passing the bill to North Carolina households and increasing pollution. North Carolina should expect and deserve better than business as usual, and this report provides legislators and regulators with a blueprint for action.”
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