Dive Brief:

• Local residential solar installers in North Carolina have asked Duke Energy CEO Lynn Good to throw the company's significant political clout behind a legislative effort to extend a critical 35% tax credit for solar that expires at the end of the year, the Charlotte Business Journal reports.
• Keeping in line with its previous position on the issue, Duke Energy responded by saying it will not participate in the fight over the tax credit. Duke says it neither supports nor opposes the tax credit.
• In a letter to Good, the solar installers said the credit is vital and they have already seen adverse impacts to their business -- including long interconnection delays, difficulties in making committments to finish projects, and trouble finding qualified installers who are not rushing to complete larger projects by the end of the year -- with the credit set to expire.

Dive Insight:

With the end of the 35% solar tax credit looming large, solar installers and advocates in North Carolina would like to extend the credit for two years, with a gradual step-down in each coming year to ease the impact of its expiration.

“Without the tax credit, Duke Energy will have a much less fertile environment for expanding its portfolio of services to North Carolina customers,” solar installers wrote in a letter to Duke Energy CEO Lynn good. “This is bad for everyone: the customers who want more clean energy options, the companies like ours who work to provide those options, and the utility, who will have a more limited customer base willing to partner in the development of tomorrow’s electrical grid, which we all know is coming.”

However, Duke Energy's position on the issue remains the same despite the pressure from local solar installers. 

“Our stance hasn’t changed,” Randy Wheeless, spokesman for the utility, told the Charlotte Business Journal. “We know tax credits are a hot issue in Raleigh. We believe that the General Assembly is in the best position to settle this issue itself."

In exclusive interviews with Utility Dive in the past year, Duke Energy executives have held that they believe a broader, more comprehensive discussion about solar, the grid, and the role of the utility needs to take place, instead battling piecemeal over specific tax credits and other policies. Spokesman Randy Wheeless recently cited the compromise policy package agreed upon by solar advocates and utilities South Carolina as an example of the kind of approach the utility wants to see.