Dive Brief:

• Duke Energy Progress proposed to the North Carolina Utilities Commission (NCUC) that its current $0.20 per month charge to residential customers to cover the cost of renewables incentives be increased to $0.83 per month, along with reductions for business customers from $8.08 per month to $6.11 per month and for industrial customers from $29.68 per month to $24.56 per month.
• The charges cover the utility’s costs for incentives paid to developers to provide the renewables required of electric utilities in North Carolina to meet the state’s 12.5% renewables by 2021 renewable energy and energy efficiency portfolio standard.
• The shift of the cost for renewables incentives to residential customers is because the legislatively imposed cap on them increases in 2015 from $12 per year to $34 per year while the $150 yearly business cap and the $1,000 per year industrial cap will not change.

Dive Insight:

If approved by the NCUC, the new charges would go into effect in December for 1.3 million Duke Energy Progress customers in North Carolina.

Duke Energy Carolinas, which serves 1.9 million customers, requested similar rate changes that were approved by the NCUC in June 2013 and will go into effect September 1, 2014.

The Duke Energy Carolinas increase to residential customers will move the charge from a current $0.04 per month credit, because of past cost over-estimates, to $0.40 per month, while the business charge will drop from $3.25 to $1.25 per month and the industrial charge will drop from $11.10 per month to $5.30 a month.