The state Senate will soon vote on a bill that would eliminate North Carolina鈥檚 2030 carbon pollution reduction target. Legislators set a goal of reducing carbon pollution by 70% by 2030 when they passed HB 951 with bipartisan support in 2021.
鈥淗ouse Bill 951 was a negotiation,鈥� said Will Scott, southeast clean energy and climate director at the Environmental Defense Fund. 鈥淲hat this would do essentially is remove half of that deal.鈥�
The bill also allows Duke Energy to recover costs on power generating facilities while still under construction instead of after the utility completes them.
Sen. Paul Newton, a Republican, presented the bill in committee Wednesday. He called the 2030 target 鈥渁rbitrary.鈥� Other states, including Oregon, Virginia and Louisiana set similar interim targets around the same time.
He said removing the target would save $13 billion, based on modeling from the state consumer advocacy group, the Public Staff.
鈥淲hat I would say to my solar friends who have already been out in the media saying, 鈥楽olar鈥檚 cheap. The sun is free!鈥� If you鈥檙e right, you have nothing to worry about,鈥� Newton said during a committee meeting Tuesday.
The public staff did not release the modeling publicly, but reported that it did not include inflation, federal funding, fuel prices and other factors that changed since Duke Energy modeled for the last carbon plan. The model without a 2030 target also favored building more natural gas in lieu of wind and solar power and battery storage.
鈥淚 think there鈥檚 this misnomer that other technologies like, for example, solar or other renewables lead to a premium cost to utility consumers in the state when in fact that鈥檚 not true,鈥� said Matt Abele, executive director of the N.C. Sustainable Energy Association.
The cost of carbon-free energy
Sen. Julie Mayfield, a Democrat, requested more time to review the bill, which was filed on Monday. She also challenged Newton on whether the bill would save ratepayers money:
鈥淪o, ratepayers 鈥� even if Duke builds the facility but it never opens 鈥� ratepayers are still on the hook for that cost?鈥� Mayfield asked.
Newton said 鈥渋t depends.鈥� If state regulators determine that the costs weren鈥檛 justified, or 鈥減rudently incurred,鈥� then Duke shareholders will absorb the costs. But, if state regulators determined those costs were justified, ratepayers would shell out for a project that never comes online. This happened in South Carolina when construction on units at , after the state utility had already spent $9 billion.
Newton trivialized the impact that meeting the 2030 target would have on global warming and said North Carolina could reach carbon neutrality by 2050 without incremental benchmarks. However, the state releases more carbon dioxide annually than some countries and over a quarter of what Mexico emits.
鈥淭he benefit of these long-term targets in terms of reducing our emissions, part of it is the cumulative emissions reductions that you get along the way,鈥� said Environmental Defense Fund鈥檚 Will Scott.
While North Carolina may account for less than a percent of total global emissions, it鈥檚 still disproportionately high compared to other regions. In 2022, the United States was responsible for .
There is also a risk when relying on nuclear power plant projects to finish on time.
鈥淚 certainly would not want us to get to the late 2040s and count on a couple of big nuclear plants to flip the switch,鈥� Mayfield said.
Legislators, clean energy advocates and environmental groups raised concerns about the utility recovering costs on ongoing construction jobs. Mayfield said she didn鈥檛 want North Carolina to end up in the same situation as Georgia did when, as the Associated Press reported, Vogtl . Georgia had passed a similar law in 2009 that allowed Georgia Power to recover costs on those two nuclear units during construction.
