Major US utility shelves wind plans and extends coal on Trump 'flexibility'
North Carolina energy provider Duke moves away from renewables in reaction to federal policy shifts to bolster fossil fuels and kill wind
Duke Energy has shelved plans for wind power, including offshore, and is looking to delay closure of coal capacity in its latest long term energy plan for North and South Carolina.
The departure reflects “significant policy changes at state and federal levels,” the utility said.
Duke operates separate, vertically integrated, state-managed utilities in both North and South Carolina. It is looking to merge them and submitted a single plan for both states.
The firm said its new plan reflects North and South Carolina's new emphasis on reliability and cost over carbon reduction, with North Carolina's legislature eliminating the interim 70% reduction in emissions by 2035 that was aimed at moving it towards net-zero emissions by 2050.
The plan also adapts moves at the federal level.
Policy shifts
The Trump-backed budget bill passed by Congress in July cuts off tax credits for solar and wind by 2027 while the administration now provides greater “flexibility for existing coal and new natural gas generation,” the utility said.
New wind power is “not an economically viable resource for customers through 2040 but will be reassessed at next plan update,” Duke concluded.
The latest plan also accounts for new estimates of surging power demand over the next 15 years, which has doubled compared to the 2023 report.
“North Carolina is the top state for business, and our focus is on ensuring Duke Energy’s low energy rates continue to support this region’s economic success,” Kendal Bowman, Duke Energy’s North Carolina president, said in a release.
“By expanding our diverse generation portfolio and maximising our existing power plants to meet growth needs, we will ensure reliable energy while saving all our customers money,” Bowman added.
North Carolina governor Josh Stein said in a media statement that the utility is “retreating from the state’s clean energy future.”
“Wind and solar are commercially viable today, low-cost, and move us toward zero carbon by 2050,” she added.
North Carolina renewables
North Carolina already has some 6.8GW of utility scale solar capacity, putting it only behind Texas (25.7GW), California (22.3GW) and Florida (11.9GW) in national rankings, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the statistics arm of the Department of Energy.
The state also leads the US Southeast outside Virginia with 397MW of onshore wind power. Most renewable capacity is owned by independent power producers.
While wind gets short shrift in the Charlotte-based utility’s new plan, Duke only slightly reduced the amount of solar it was looking to add, from 8.2GW by 2031 to 7.9GW by 2033.
It actually raised the target for battery storage from 3GW by 2033 to 4.7GW.
It would also add nearly 10GW of natural gas capacity and includes options for small nuclear reactor (SMR) development of 1.1GW by 2027, up from 2023’s plan for 600MW.
The plan is now before the Utilities Commission, which will begin holding hearings later this year. Duke will submit this plan to South Carolina in the coming months.
Duke's move away from wind and towards coal reflects wider trends.
From wind to coal
This week he announced more than $600m in new subsidies to the prop up the declining coal industry, while the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management successfully concluded a lease sale for mining on federal lands.
Trump has also attacked the wind industry with multiple executive orders aimed at stalling development and even killing projects already in construction.
Amid these moves, coal fired power generation is up 9% according to the EIA.
Wind power generation is also up 4%, though. The EIA attributes the rises in both sectors to surging power demand rather than policy.
“Electricity generation has been growing rapidly this year as a result of growing demand for power from data centers and industrial customers,” the EIA said in its most recent assessment of the US power supply released last month.
“We expect that total US generation by the electric power sector will grow by 2.3% in 2025 and a further 3.0% next year,” a marked increase over earlier estimates, it noted.
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