Editorial: New law just incremental. More needed for 'transformative' energy policy
Friday, Oct. 22, 2021 -- North Carolina's direction toward a clean energy future - and one that protects all utility consumers - is not even close to a determined march. This latest move is a step in the right direction but could easily be knocked off path unless Gov. Roy Cooper and other clean and fair energy advocates remain vigilant and press to expand renewables and protect all consumers.
Posted — UpdatedFrom mid-July, when the bill was sent to the Senate until early October – 73 days – it sat -- but it wasn’t gathering dust nor was it getting much sunlight.
Behind closed doors -- legislative leaders, Gov. Roy Cooper’s office, energy executives and some select business and clean-energy advocates – wheeling and dealing on the bill continued.
- Calls on the state Utilities Commission to take all “reasonable steps” to reach a 70% cut in carbon dioxide emissions from electric generating facilities in the state by 2030 and reach carbon neutrality by 2050. The commission must develop with public and stakeholder input, by the end of 2022, a plan to achieve those goals – and update the plan every two years.
- Mandates the Utilities Commission develop a financing scheme to cover the costs of retiring “subcritical” coal-fired power plants.
- Requires the state Department of Environmental Quality to develop a plan to “ensure adequate financial resources” to decommission utility-scale solar projects.
- Changes the way state regulators determine and approve consumer utility rate increases so Duke Energy can establish multi-year ratemaking allowing up to 4% increases in the second and third years of the rate-setting process. This change could cost consumers as much as 8% more on their power bills. Now rate increases must be approved annually.
- There is not adequate cushioning of low-income ratepayers from the impact of rate increases – leaving the poorest consumers in jeopardy. The multi-year rate-setting, critics say, gives Duke Energy nearly the authority of the Commission that’s supposed to be the regulator.
- Wind energy generation isn’t mentioned – either onshore or offshore. North Carolina is estimated to have the best offshore wind energy resource on the east coast. Legislative leaders have sought, at various times, to block the development of offshore wind energy. While there have been leases allowed for offshore wind development off Kitty Hawk, President Donald Trump ordered a 10-year ban on offshore wind leases starting July 2022. There are current efforts to reverse Trump’s order.
- There is no mandate for achieving the carbon dioxide emissions reductions – so a future Utilities Commission, a legislatively-ordered change or even Duke Energy – could diminish or even do away with the effort.
What this legislation does make clear is that it will be up to the state Utilities Commission – and those who appoint those commissioners – to determine the extent to which the most ambitious goals in HB 951 are pursued and achieved.
North Carolina’s direction toward a clean energy future – and one that protects all utility consumers – is not even close to a determined march.
This latest move is just a step in the right direction but could easily be knocked off path unless Cooper and other clean and fair energy advocates remain vigilant and press to expand renewables and protect all consumers.
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