NC WARN

Duke CEO admits “24/7” recruiting of data centers; regulator decries corporate focus on profits over public, calls for pause on new data centers

Statement by Executive Director Jim Warren:

Durham, N.C. – In a regulatory hearing this week, Duke Energy’s top executives admitted that they recruit the very data centers used to justify a $63 billion expansion of fossil fuels and nuclear power plants in the Carolinas. Today, NC WARN declares that the case for that expansion is dead, and that existing coal- and gas-fired power plants can be rapidly and inexpensively phased out by the far cheaper solar and battery storage that Duke Energy has blocked for years. 

Duke Energy CEO Harry Sideris recently boasted to corporate investors, “We have a [recruiting] team in place that their goal, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, is how do we get these things signed quicker?” Duke’s North Carolina president Kendal Bowman confirmed (1:03:00) during the hearing that this same aggressive recruiting of energy-guzzling data centers is in use in NC.

Duke conceded that use of electricity has fallen over the long term despite huge population growth, and that it has consistently and grossly exaggerated future projections for years while arguing it must build a huge number of new power plants for electricity usage that ultimately never materializes. 

Now, they’ve been caught admitting that they’re actively recruiting new large customers to try to justify the largest expansion of fossil fuels and experimental nuclear plants in the nation. 

This is a scandal and crime being perpetrated against the people of North Carolina who are already struggling with soaring power bills, repeated devastation by storms and assaults on their communities by massive data center developers who provide almost no jobs after initial construction. It is outrageous that a state-sanctioned monopoly should be allowed to drive even higher profits by gouging the public with constant rate hikes year after year.

A witness for the Utilities Commission’s Public Staff stated (1:42:55) that Duke is acting in the interest of shareholders over ratepayers by overzealously signing new large load customers. The Public Staff now recommends (4:03:15) that the Commission impose a 1-year pause on new data centers and scrutinize new contracts for any future data centers. 

NC WARN’s expert witness, engineer Bill Powers, provided evidence in the proceeding that local solar-plus-storage (SPS) can rapidly replace existing coal- and gas-fired power plants and avoid any new ones. Powers shows that the massive potential for local SPS in North Carolina makes it the fastest, cheapest, most equitable tool to move the state off its course toward climate and social chaos.

NC WARN is calling on Governor Josh Stein and Attorney General Jeff Jackson to cut through the years of scandal and deception and stop the criminal behavior by this giant corporation run by a gang of millionaires. We cannot wait for a ruling in six months and hope the Utilities Commission will remedy this scandalous behavior by Duke Energy executives. 

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Now in its 38th year, NC WARN is building people power in the climate and energy justice movement to persuade or require Charlotte-based Duke Energy – one of the world’s largest climate polluters – to make a quick transition to renewable, affordable power generation and energy efficiency in order to avert climate tipping points and ongoing rate hikes. 

The post Scandal at Duke Energy Hearing Kills the Case for $63 Billion Fossil Fuel and Nuclear Expansion — NC WARN News Release appeared first on NC WARN.

At regulatory hearing, lawyer and expert discredit Duke Energy’s “blind faith” claims of huge upcoming growth and new climate-wrecking power plants

A prominent clean energy expert has provided written testimony in a regulatory proceeding that challenges Duke Energy’s plans for a massive buildout of failure-prone nuclear plants and climate-wrecking fracked gas. It’s unclear if the North Carolina Utilities Commission will allow this expert to provide verbal testimony in the ongoing hearing in Raleigh. 

The testimony of engineer Bill Powers, P.E., of San Diego also describes the huge potential for a path that could quickly phase out fossil fuels and protect citizens from Duke’s massive rate hikes. According to Powers, local solar-plus-storage (SPS) installations could be installed at a fraction of the time and cost of new nuclear units – making it the fastest, cheapest, most equitable tool to move North Carolina off its course toward climate and social chaos. 

As detailed in NC WARN’s Sharing Solar proposal, new local SPS could be put into the rate base for all customers to share the costs and benefits, much like we already pay for dirty energy. Multiple excellent solar companies in North Carolina are positioned to install SPS on roofs, parking areas and unused ground areas at or near where power is used. 

Powers’ testimony for NC WARN centers on the following issues:

1. 1. Duke Energy’s electricity demand forecasts are “poor … consistently inflated and wrong” (pg. 15-16). Duke predicts a massive influx of new electricity demand, which it is using to justify investments in new, dirty power generation. In reality, per capita electricity use in NC has been on the decline for years (pg. 9), and Duke has been able historically to meet peak demand while leaving much of its existing power plant fleet sitting idle (pg. 17).

   2. Duke Energy’s plans for failure-prone, colossally expensive nuclear reactors rely on “blind faith” that past mistakes won’t be repeated (pg. 29). The only two AP1000 reactors – the model of large nuclear plants that Duke hopes to construct – ever completed in the US are the most expensive power plants ever built (pg. 25) due to construction challenges, delays and cost overruns. Duke Energy has already failed 6 times during its attempts to build the AP1000 reactor and has been unable to explain how it can avoid repeating the mistakes that led to previous project collapses (pg. 28).*
      
      
   3. Duke Energy plans the nation’s largest buildout of fracked gas-burning power plants. Duke’s whopping proposed 12.3 GW of new fracked gas generation largely hinges on its ability to transition these new plants to burn “green hydrogen” some time in the 2040s. Powers indicates that green hydrogen remains elusive as a reliable fuel source despite industry efforts over many years (pg. 36).

   4. Solar-plus-storage can serve as a cheaper, more reliable alternative to Duke’s plans for new nuclear reactors and fracked gas-fired power plants. According to Powers, North Carolina has the solar potential for SPS to “operate as baseload, intermediate, and peaking power in the years leading to 2050 … to replace existing coal- and gas-fired generation and displace any new gas-fired and nuclear power as necessary” (pg. 40).

NC WARN attorney Matt Quinn led last week’s in-person proceedings by challenging Duke Energy witnesses on using monopoly customer money to recruit power-guzzling industrial customers to North Carolina. These developments are facing widespread opposition – including community-backed moratoriums on data centers. 

Brought to light by the Utilities Commission’s Public Staff during the hearing, Duke Energy CEO Harry Sideris recently boasted to investors, “We have a [recruiting] team in place that their goal, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, is how do we get these things signed quicker?” 

Duke leaders also told investors they plan to drive up profits and power bills by adding an unprecedented $60 billion to the rate system in just the next 4 years in the Carolinas. NC WARN rejects the idea that a monopoly utility should be allowed to spend millions a year boosting its own revenue at the expense of the public. Meanwhile, its actions further entrench the corporation’s stature as one of the world’s worst climate polluters.

NC WARN appreciates that Attorney General Jeff Jackson criticized Duke Energy’s exaggerated growth projections and overreliance on fracked gas, as well as his recommendation that Duke should “plan based on realistic projections and include more affordable, stable sources like solar.” 

*Duke Energy’s filing projects it would be at least 2037 before any new nuclear plant becomes operational, far too late to help with the climate crisis or to power data centers. 

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Now in its 38th year, NC WARN is building people power in the climate and energy justice movement to persuade or require Charlotte-based Duke Energy – one of the world’s largest climate polluters – to make a quick transition to renewable, affordable power generation and energy efficiency in order to avert climate tipping points and ongoing rate hikes. 

The post Clean Energy Expert Shows Quick, Inexpensive Path to Phase Out Fossil Fuels in North Carolina — NC WARN News Release appeared first on NC WARN.

The short letter below was sent to Governor Josh Stein and Attorney General Jeff Jackson this morning.

June 10, 2026

Honorable Josh Stein
Governor of North Carolina

Cc: Attorney General Jeff Jackson

Subject: World Court Requires Your Urgent Action vs Duke Energy as Wars Accelerate a Global Shift Away from Fossil Fuels

Dear Governor Stein,

As North Carolina communities brace for hurricane and heatwave season and scientists escalate their warnings that global warming is passing limits deemed critical for human survival, two major transitions now underway provide a vital opportunity for a genuine phase out of fossil fuels. Both require your personal action and would finally begin to shift North Carolina from being a key driver of climate change to joining those doing all possible to avert ecological and social chaos.

1)    The United Nations overwhelmingly supported a World Court decision stating that governments – including governors such as yourself – have a legal obligation to act in response to the climate crisis and, in Greenpeace International’s words, to “regulate businesses on the harm caused by their emissions.” Only the US and 7 other countries opposed the measure.

2)    Although the ongoing wars in the Middle East continue to cause horrific suffering, energy experts see ironic implications for the climate crisis. The prolonged disruption of oil and methane gas markets – which has accelerated since the Russia-Ukraine war began – is boosting “demand destruction,” a permanent shift to renewable energy sources that was already well-underway in many parts of the world – but not in North Carolina.

In other words, the world community is gradually becoming more clearly delineated between climate leaders and corporate laggards and their enablers. A clean energy transition is underway in many nations; globally, renewable power sources grew fast enough to meet all new electricity demand in 2025 without an increase in generation from fossil fuels.

Despite the encouraging progress in many countries, broader leadership is still gravely needed – and legally required, according to the UN’s World Court – to ensure that polluting corporations in rich countries don’t “wring every last drop of profit … even if it destroys the earth while denying their impending obsolescence,” as journalist Rebecca Solnit writes.

As you well know but have not acknowledged publicly, Duke Energy executives are planning the largest US expansion of gas-fired power generation, an enormous 12,300 megawatts. Scientists have for several years pressed you to lead a major change in Duke’s climate-wrecking trajectory: its gamble of public dollars on fossil fuels and failure-prone nuclear plants and suppression of solar and wind.

Duke Energy’s latest pause in developing large scale solar has been wrongly characterized as an “order” by the NC Utilities Commission. As you know, Duke has long dominated our state government and has traditionally gotten nearly everything it wants from the captive regulators.

Together, Duke Energy leaders and regulators continue to limit large-scale solar. Even worse, they continue to block the vast and virtually untapped potential for local solar-plus-storage (SPS) even though it could readily replace current and future fossil fueled electricity in the state; as NC WARN’s Sharing Solar proposal shows, rooftop/parking lot SPS would be the fastest, cheapest and most equitable way to replace coal and gas.

We urge you once again to use your enormous public voice to be honest with the people of our state: stop joining Duke Energy in claiming that NC has curbed greenhouse gas emissions. That gross deception hinges on ignoring the super-potent heat-trapping methane that is central to Duke Energy’s ongoing expansion of climate- and community-wrecking fossil fuels.

This is a golden opportunity for you to finally provide hope to those being buffeted by extreme weather events and soaring power bills – two sides of the same coin fueled by Duke Energy’s business model of building high-cost, high-risk power plants that are not needed.

Governor Stein, dozens of scientists, hundreds of businesses and nonprofits and leaders of communities being devastated by extreme weather have called for you to act. Now the UN World Court has required you to take action, and its order is enforceable in North Carolina.

Instead of continuing to escalate our criticism, NC WARN remains eager to join with you to help this state do our genuine duty to counter the escalating threat to all life on Earth.

Sincerely,

Jim Warren
Executive Director

The post Letter: World Court Requires Governor’s Urgent Action vs Duke Energy as Wars Accelerate a Global Shift Away from Fossil Fuels appeared first on NC WARN.