GOOD MONEY IN NO CAROLINA GOING GREEN

Report backs renewable energy requirements
John Murawski, December 13, 2006 (The News & Observer)
- North Carolina has significant potential to develop wind and other alternative energy without drastically increasing customer bills, a study prepared for the N.C. Utilities Commission says…renewable energy could provide as much as 1,800 megawatts of power, the equivalent of two power plants the size of Progress Energy's Shearon Harris nuclear plant in Wake County.

- The study comes at a time that Progress Energy and Duke Energy are planning to build nuclear plants and Duke Energy is also planning to build coal-fired power plants…renewables would offset the need to build some power plants…reducing pollutants, greenhouse gases and radioactive nuclear waste…
- However, if the general assembly adopted a renewable energy requirement, the time required to develop and establish the program would not likely be sufficient to cancel the coal and nuclear plants that are being planned now…

- Utilities in North Carolina have resisted past efforts to require the use alternative energy, most recently lobbying against a bill proposed in 2005 that would have required utilities to make renewables 10 percent of their energy mix…Progress and Duke contended that renewable energy is not sufficiently available here, and not always reliable…Solar energy is expensive and is not considered feasible without substantial subsidies. Wind power is coming down in price and increasingly practical, but not available when the wind isn't blowing.
- One of the biggest obstacles to renewable energy in North Carolina has been the state's cheap electricity rates…
- The…state could generate 5 percent of their electricity from renewables and as much as 10 percent if they expanded their energy efficiency programs. Currently, almost all the state's electricity comes from nuclear power plants and coal-fired plants…
- A 5 percent renewable energy requirement would double renewable use in the state and result in rate increases of less than 1 percent…A 10 percent requirement, implemented over 10 years, would raise rates by 3.6 percent at most…If energy efficiency were included…rates would go up by less than 1 percent, but actual bills would be lowered because energy use would decrease…