Dive Summary:

• Monday, Duke Energy’s Lynn Good starts her new job as CEO of the utility just one day before the one-year anniversary of Duke’s merger with Progress Energy which created the nation’s largest regulated utility.
• Lucky for Lynn, the drama over the merger, which saw the abrupt firing of Progress’ CEO Bill Johnson and the resignation of three of his loyal comrades, has gone from shock and awe to improved focused. Since last July, Duke has completed about 230 of 600 integration initiatives, and will complete 400 by the end of 2013. "We've gone through the stage of grieving," says Lee Mazzocchi, Duke's chief integration and innovation officer. "We're talking more and more about being one company, and less about being two."
• But Duke's merger problems aren't over.  An advocacy group, N.C. WARN, is still fighting the merger in the North Carolina Court of Appeals. WARN argues that Duke’s spending on nuclear plants will cut into promised customer savings.

From the article:
“Morningstar analyst Andrew Bischof wrote last week that the 5 percent to 7 percent in overall reduced costs Duke expects with the merger is attainable. But delivering the promised fuel and dispatch savings to customers, he said, could be tougher.”