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By Canary Media
By Canary Media
Canary Media
Last month, North Carolina’s top utility regulator abruptly halted Duke Energy’s solar farm investments for the year — an unforeseen blow to an industry already reeling from tariffs and a hostile federal government.
Now, clean energy businesses and advocates have filed a motion to cancel the order, which they argue is not just “arbitrary and capricious,” but also at odds with a 2021 state climate law requiring Duke, North Carolina’s predominant utility, to zero out its carbon pollution by midcentury.
Because the freezing of solar contracts this year could upend Duke’s long-term plan to transition to carbon-free resources, critics of the order are asking for an expedited ruling on their reconsideration petition by May 19. The carbon-reduction plan is still pending with regulators.
“Any kind of reconsideration should happen quickly,” said Mikaela Curry, a North Carolina–based Beyond Coal campaign manager with Sierra Club, one of the groups protesting the order. “If this gets dragged out and delayed, it still could have the same impact.”
The April 23 ruling from Utilities Commission Chair William Brawley takes aim at the competitive bidding process by which Duke adds large-scale solar fields to its generation mix. It has been the main avenue for building solar in North Carolina since the 2021 climate law.
To comply with that law, Duke must submit a carbon-reduction plan for approval by regulators every two years. According to the last blueprint, greenlit by commissioners in 2024, the utility was scheduled to solicit bids for 1.7 gigawatts of solar this year — including some paired with storage.
Yet, in part because Congress curtailed tax credits for solar last summer, Duke proposed in March to procure just 770 megawatts in 2026. In his order, Brawley, a Republican former state legislator, seized on that 1-gigawatt deficit to argue that the company should procure no solar or storage at all.
“Any modification of an existing procurement target for solar generation and battery energy storage,” Brawley wrote, should be based on a long-term plan approved by the commission, not a plan “unilaterally proposed” by Duke.
Brawley’s directive defers Duke’s procurement plans for solar and storage until the company’s next carbon-reduction blueprint is ratified, an action due by Dec. 31.
Clean energy advocates say that deadline makes the practical effect of the order unmistakable: eliminating solar procurement entirely this year — not just deferring it.
“The Deferral Order’s prohibition on even the pre-issuance design and stakeholder discussion processes forecloses any possibility of completion in 2026,” wrote John Burns, general counsel for the Carolinas Clean Energy Business Association, in his organization’s motion for reconsideration. “The inevitable result is that no 2026 solar procurement will take place.”
Because projects come online years after they’re contracted, the 2026 cancellation would cause a gap in energy supply in the early 2030s — even as the company projects huge demand growth from data centers.
“By the time those years roll around, we’re still going to need that solar on the grid,” Curry said.
The stoppage also comes as gas-plant components continue to get costlier and more time-consuming to build, given long backlogs in the supply chain. What’s more, the utility has already maxed out its contracts for new gas turbines in the near term — so it can’t try to fill the gap with fossil-fueled power plants anyway.
Combined with Duke’s backtracking on offshore wind, Curry said, “we’re being driven into an artificial affordability crisis, where solar and other resources that don’t have fuel costs are being pushed off.”
Brawley’s decision had no input from Duke, the company confirmed, or any other stakeholder, according to public record. Couched as an order “by the chairman,” it was signed only by the Utilities Commission’s chief clerk, with no apparent votes from the panel’s four other commissioners — an extraordinary and, critics contend, illegal step from the quasi-judicial panel.
In addition to the curtailment of federal tax credits, the order cites the fact that last year North Carolina amended the 2021 law to remove a 2030 deadline for Duke to cut its pollution. But the company must still reach net-zero carbon by 2050, critics argue, and any delay in solar procurement threatens that goal. Plus, they say Brawley lacks sole authority to contradict the last regulator-approved carbon-reduction plan.
“The longer that we wait to get these clean resources on the grid,” Curry said, “the more harm we’re doing ourselves.”
Duke has not formally weighed in on Brawley’s order. The company said its immediate impact would be minimal.
“Solar and solar paired with storage remain a key part of our diverse energy mix,” Duke spokesperson Bill Norton said in an email. “Solar already approved for development and construction between now and 2030 in North Carolina is not affected by this ruling, so it has no impact on how we meet our customers’ energy needs in the near-term. We’re still evaluating how it may impact long-term planning for the 2030s.”
The Sierra Club, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, and Vote Solar — all represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center — are urging that the full commission cancel the Brawley order and force Duke to solicit bids for about 1.7 gigawatts of solar — in line with the 2024 plan. The Carolinas Clean Energy Business Association has called for a return to Duke’s 770 megawatts.
The groups could appeal through the state’s courts if they’re rebuffed.
No matter what, the April ruling is a terrible sign for North Carolina’s clean energy transition. It could cause solar companies to look to other states with more-stable clean energy policies. It bodes ill for how the Utilities Commission, controlled by Republican appointees for the first time in a decade, will rule on Duke’s plan at the end of the year. And perhaps worst of all, it shows increasing antipathy from the GOP for the state’s young climate law, which Republicans could axe altogether this year, given their effective veto-proof majority.
Elizabeth Ouzts is a contributing reporter at Canary Media who covers North Carolina and Virginia.
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