Duke Energy Plots Attack on North Carolina’s Solar Revolution

North Carolina has become a hot spot for solar. The state was second in the nation in solar growth in 2013, behind only California. So if U.S. states were considered countries, North Carolina would have qualified as one of the top 10 countries in the world for solar growth last year.

All of that solar growth, driven by policies like the state’s renewable energy portfolio law, has been a boon for North Carolina’s economy, generating $1.7 billion in revenue for the state. At the end of 2012, 137 solar companies employed 1,400 people in North Carolina and that number increased during a record year in 2013 for solar.

But while solar shines brightly in North Carolina, a dark cloud is approaching that is putting all the benefits of solar at risk. Duke Energy, which is the state’s monopoly utility and the largest power company in the country, is about to launch a major attack on solar energy.

In January, Paul Newton, Duke’s president of North Carolina operations, launched the first shots in the attack on solar. Speaking in front of a joint energy committee of the state’s legislature, Newton attacked net metering, one of the key policies to North Carolina’s solar growth.

Net metering allows customers with rooftop solar panels to get credit for any extra electricity that they send back to the grid. It’s kind of like rollover minutes on a cell phone bill.

Newton argued that solar customers aren’t “paying their fair share” to Duke, and because of that, his company would be forced to charge higher rates to all of its other customers as a result.

The problem is those allegations are false. A study conducted last year showed that the benefits of rooftop solar in North Carolina – even for customers who don’t have the panels – would outweigh any costs by 30 percent. The reason is as more homes and businesses go solar, Duke wouldn't have to keep building expensive gas and coal plants, which are bad for the environment, and consequently raising rates on its customers to finance them. Those rate benefits are aside from the job creation, climate, and public health positives of solar power. However, Duke’s shareholders profit by building those gas and coal plants, which is exactly why rooftop solar is in the line of fire.

Duke’s Big Ally in its War on Solar: ALEC

Duke isn't the first utility in the U.S. to attack net metering; utility companies in California, Arizona and Colorado began similar campaigns in 2013, and others are forming battle plans now. In December, The Guardian newspaper uncovered that these power companies have been coordinating their efforts under the guise of the American Legislative Exchange Council, (ALEC), a group that lets corporations like Duke ghostwrite laws for right-wing state legislators.

Many utilities are ALEC members and continue to make ALEC’s top priority to attack net metering laws. Forty percent of NC state lawmakers are ALEC members, and because of that Duke will rely on them to do their bidding.

So far, Duke and ALEC’s communications strategy has been to stigmatize solar energy as being only for the wealthy. Their argument is that resident shouldn’t let the rich with solar panels get even richer on the backs of non-solar households.

In the beginning of solar, it may have been mostly higher income families, since it involved a cost upfront. However, recent research reveals that middle class neighborhoods are increasingly opting for solar. In any case, if ALEC and the utility companies are so worried about the poor, perhaps they should be trying to give more solar access to working and middle class communities, since it will help them save money, and not take away their chance to go solar by attacking policies like net metering.

Duke will eventually learn to bask in the sun.

A few days after Newton went in front of the legislature to attack solar policies, Duke Energy’s Facebook and Twitter feeds started bragging, amazingly, about North Carolina’s solar growth:

Shining in solar. North Carolina ranks fourth in the nation. #solarpic.twitter.com/twBF8eXzIb
— Duke Energy (@DukeEnergy) January 16, 2014

That was not the only public display of support for solar power Duke has shown in recent months. Previous CEO Jim Rogers said that he saw said that he saw rooftop solar as an opportunity as much as a threat, and in March, Duke bought a stake of a distributed solar power financing company, Clean Power Finance.

Were these moves signs that Duke is embracing the solar revolution, or just a PR move to appear more green? Both may be true: Duke is feeling its way around the edges of solar opportunities while stalling for time by attacking net metering. One scenario that would speed up Duke’s solar transition is if it loses on net metering, which would force the company to quickly come to terms with the inevitability of solar.

A Duke loss on net metering is far from a given, considering Duke and ALEC’s almost unlimited influence in North Carolina politics. Though even with all of Duke’s money and political power, it can’t change one simple reality: Rooftop solar is immensely popular. A 2013 poll showed that 88 percent of North Carolinians support solar energy. Last year, when ALEC attacked North Carolina’s renewable energy law and the effort failed because Republicans in the legislature recognized growing solar power as a job creator. In fact, ALEC’s efforts to attack renewable energy laws failed in every state where it tried in 2013.

Now, solar advocates will suit up to fight the next attack wave in this year. The sooner they win, the sooner utility companies such as Duke will have to face the music and realize that they need to join their customers as they bask in the sun.

Rewritten from David Pomerantz, Greenpeace Blogs