Duke Energy wants to fleece customers for coal ash cleanup and canceled nuke plant

Asking for a 16.7% rate increase from residential customers:

The increase includes Duke’s request to recover almost $680 million from customers for the money spent since 2015 cleaning up the utility’s coal-ash ponds at eight current and former coal-powered plants in North and South Carolina.

And the filing says Duke will ask the N.C. Utilities Commission to cancel plans for Duke’s proposed Lee Nuclear Station and let Duke charge N.C. customers for the state’s share of more than $540 million in planning and pre-construction costs the utility has already spent on the project. That will be detailed in a separate filing.

Aside from being costly mistakes made by the utility itself, neither one of those things will provide an additional kilowatt of energy for our state. Nothing. If you walked into a Belks or even a Harris Teeter and were greeted with a sign that said, "We made some stupid decisions so now we've raised our prices by almost 17%! Have a nice day!" You would probably turn around and walk right out. But you can't walk out of Duke Energy. If we ever needed the NCUC to stand up and do what's right, this is it.

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