Carolinas Resource Plan

Our Carolinas Resource Plan is Duke Energy’s proposed roadmap for North Carolina and South Carolina – delivering a path to cleaner energy without compromising grid reliability, energy affordability or the energy demands of a growing region.

The utility industry is continuing its exit from coal in response to mounting pressures that threaten the long-term reliability of coal plants. Duke Energy’s new resource plan maps out how to replace these facilities in a manner that continues to provide economic benefit to the Carolinas.

The plan includes new resources and an increased reserve margin to facilitate jobs and investment while providing equal or greater reliability. Based on accelerating economic development in the two states, Duke Energy’s load growth is projected to surge by around 35,000 gigawatt-hours in the next 15 years – more than the annual electric generation of Delaware, Maine and New Hampshire combined. The resource plan proposes infrastructure investments of more than $90 billion to meet this need.

The plan balances traditional forms of dispatchable, on-demand resources (advanced nuclear, natural gas and pumped hydro storage) with a growing amount of complementary renewables that can deliver fuel-free energy. By targeting carbon neutrality by 2050, the plan will also help achieve customer sustainability goals, including those of the largest employers in both South Carolina and North Carolina.

Update:

The robust economic development success we are experiencing in the Carolinas continues to grow. Compared to the 2023 spring load forecast used to develop the 2023 Carolinas Resource Plan, the peak load growth in the updated 2023 fall load forecast has increased by approximately 2,000 megawatts. Given this unprecedented increase in projected load growth, Duke Energy provided regulators with supplemental modeling on Jan. 31, 2024 – please see the load growth fact sheet for more.