Duke Energy seeks rate hike after early 2026 cold snap

In late January and early February 2026, North Carolina and much of the Southeast were hit by a major cold snap, prompting utilities like Duke Energy to urge customers to reduce power usage and secure an emergency waiver from the US Department of Energy to run power plants at additional capacity. 

Duke Energy is now asking the North Carolina Utilities Commission (NCUC) to approve rate increases to recover more than $800 million in fuel and purchased power from other utilities incurred during the winter cold snap. 

The utility says extremely cold temperatures drove record electricity demand, which was beyond what its own power plants could supply, forcing it to buy additional electricity from neighboring utilities at higher prices. 

“When customers need power the most — during extreme cold or heat — reliability is not optional,” said Kendal Bowman, Duke Energy’s North Carolina president. “Our responsibility is to deliver electricity safely and reliably, even when demand exceeds what our system can supply on its own.” 

Gov. Josh Stein blasted Duke for the decision to recoup costs and took a shot at the legislature for approving the Power Bill Reduction Act in 2025. 

“On top of a proposed 15% rate hike, Duke Energy is now asking North Carolinians to foot the bill for an additional $800 million in increased fuel costs,” Stein said in a statement. “I vetoed Senate Bill 266 for exactly this reason: because it would further expose North Carolina ratepayers to volatile fuel markets and shift the cost of electricity from large industrial users onto the backs of regular people, making your utility bills more expensive. Republican legislators knew this too – but still left North Carolinians holding the bag.” 

State lawmakers passed SB 266, arguing it could save North Carolinians up to $15 billion in future utility costs while helping meet rapidly growing electricity demand. 

“Stein’s comment is flat wrong,” Jon Sanders, director of the John Locke Foundation’s Center for Food, Power, and Life. “First, Duke would be able to recoup these emergency fuel costs regardless of SB 266. More importantly, SB 266 saves ratepayers $13 billion by 2050 by repealing the Carbon Plan law’s interim goal. Modeling presented to the Senate by the NCUC’s Public Staff last year showed this. Someone as serious about saving ratepayers money as Stein purports himself to be would have signed it.”

Duke Energy filed a request with the utilities commission in late 2025 to raise electricity rates by roughly 15% across the state. The increase would apply to both Duke Energy Carolinas and Duke Energy Progress, raising average monthly bills by an estimated $17 to $23. 

During the early morning hours in late January and February 2026, natural gas, coal, and nuclear met (with nuclear exceeding) their rated capacity, supplying 100% of the state’s electricity, while solar didn’t begin generating more than 1 GWh until around 10 am on Feb. 2. 

“As evident from the table and chart, when North Carolinians needed power the most during dangerous, life-threatening cold, they received it from thermal generating sources — natural gas, coal, and especially nuclear,” wrote Jon Sanders the Director of the Center for Food, Power, and Life at the John Locke Foundation “Solar power was nonexistent during the early morning hours, and even later that morning it still provided power well below capacity.” 

Duke Energy maintains in the filling the $800 million is a pass-through cost without any markup. If approved, residential customers could see monthly bill increases of roughly $6.90 to $7.88 starting June 1, with Duke proposing to spread the recovery over 19 months.

The governor encouraged the NCUC to “secure an affordable energy future for North Carolinians.” 

The request comes as North Carolina continues to see rapid population and economic growth, putting additional strain on the power grid and increasing demand for electricity.

“Stein’s answer for ‘affordable electricity’ is to flood the grid with solar and batteries, which are very expensive and inherently unreliable,” Sanders said. “True, a grid like that would not have any additional fuel costs during a bitter cold emergency, but neither would it power our homes. Maybe Stein, too, is being misled by the NCUC’s decision to exclude the costs of necessary backup generation in evaluating solar projects’ costs, despite adding those costs to customer bills.”

“Duke Energy seeks rate hike after early 2026 cold snap” was originally published on www.carolinajournal.com.