New analysis: Senate Bill 730 forces North Carolinians to underwrite $128 million per year for Duke’s aging coal plants

As the debate continues over Senate Bill 730 — recently passed by the House as the "Ratepayer Protection Act"— new analysis reveals an eye-popping catch hidden inside the bill’s energy provisions. The bottom line: By requiring a multi-billion-dollar nuclear permit before a single coal plant can be retired, S730 is forcing North Carolinians to underwrite an incredibly expensive “holding fee” for unreliable, 1960s-era coal plants.

While touted by bill supporters as a way to supposedly shield consumers from data center demand, Section 10 of the bill legally blocks Duke Energy from retiring any major coal plant until state regulators approve a massive, large-scale nuclear facility (at least 1,000 MW) — a project that would then take a minimum of 10-12 years to build from date of approval. In short, Section 10 would cost North Carolina customers $128 million annually.

To borrow from an analogy Duke Energy used during testimony at the NC Utilities Commission last week, EDF’s North Carolina Policy Director Will Scott said, “We’ve all had an old car that became more expensive to fix than simply buying something newer and more reliable. But S730, by mandating that we can’t retire coal until we build new nuclear, is like requiring someone to drive their broken down 2008 Tacoma until they can afford a new Ferrari. Instead, we should be comparison shopping for the most affordable, fastest-to-build options, which Duke Energy’s own numbers show is solar and storage."

A new independent analysis of Duke’s own data exposes exactly how much this provision will cost North Carolina families to keep 1960s-era clunkers on life support:

• $128 million “holding fee”: It costs an average of $128 million every single year just to maintain the operational availability of Duke’s aging Marshall and Roxboro coal plants — and that’s before purchasing a single dollar of actual fuel.
• 31% breakdown rate: These aren't reliable baseload assets anymore. Duke’s own filings show these 1960s-era units suffer an average 31% annual forced outage rate, meaning they are routinely breaking down and often unavailable as power system demand peaks.
• $35 billion precedent: By setting a 1,000 MW threshold, the bill effectively mandates a Westinghouse AP1000 reactor. The only completed AP1000 project in the U.S. (Georgia’s Plant Vogtle) finished 7 years late and $20.5 billion over budget (totaling $35.7 billion). The other attempt, in South Carolina, was abandoned amidst fraud investigations that landed executives in federal prison.