A utility that rarely hears no in its home state has just been refused. North Carolina’s state utilities commission rejected Duke Energy’s request to build a 255-megawatt turbine costing $584 million.<\/p>\n
The company argued the plant was needed mainly to serve fast-rising demand from new data centres. Commissioners, a majority of them Republican appointees, judged the request premature: the forecast underpinning it was not solid enough, and the risk of it landing on customers too high.<\/p>\n
Three threads ran through the refusal. Demand growth from data centres remains uncertain. Ratepayers would carry the exposure. And the proposal did not square with the Ratepayer Protection Pledge.<\/p>\n
In its order the commission said the utility had not supplied enough evidence to weigh whether grid upgrades, storage and efficiency programmes could deliver something cheaper and more reliable than a gas turbine.<\/p>\n
Will Scott, policy director at the Environmental Defense Fund, likened the approval to committing ratepayers for three decades to a plant costing half a billion dollars. \u201cWe need to slow down decisions like this and make sure we get them right,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The rejection leaves the door open: Duke may file again, but it would have to show how the project fits the White House Ratepayer Protection Pledge, and it would be better placed to do so after its next long-range plan is settled.<\/p>\n