# Why Duke Energy’s latest gas plant proposal locks North Carolina into higher costs *Published:* 2026-06-09 *Author:* Alison Wenzel When a utility company like Duke Energy plans for the future, they try to predict how much electricity their customers will need a decade from now. It’s a guessing game involving new factories, data centers and population growth. But what happens if those guesses are wrong? [According to energy expert Robert Patrylak](https://starw1.ncuc.gov/NCUC/ViewFile.aspx?Id=c5aa3733-f0cb-40dc-b1dd-acd26679b536), North Carolinians might end up paying for a multi-billion-dollar gas plant that the state doesn’t actually need. Patrylak, an engineer with over 30 years of experience in the power industry, submitted testimony on behalf of Environmental Defense Fund in Duke’s Carbon Plan hearings. These are annual hearings held by the North Carolina Utilities Commission that allow experts, ratepayers and advocacy groups to directly weigh in on Duke Energy’s energy plans. His message to the Utilities Commission is clear: Duke is moving too fast in pursuit of new fossil fuel power plants, and North Carolina families shouldn’t have to foot the bill for a “just in case” project. **Here is a breakdown of why this testimony matters for your wallet and our state’s clean energy future.** Locking in an unnecessary and costly gas plant ---------------------------------------------- Duke Energy’s [current proposal](https://www.duke-energy.com/our-company/about-us/irp-carolinas) calls for building a fleet of new gas power plants by 2033. Duke argues these are necessary to keep the lights on as North Carolina grows. After running 17 different “stress tests” on Duke’s math, Patrylak found that of the two gas plants Duke is currently seeking approval to move forward with, the case for the first is questionable and the second is “not robust” when looking at a realistic range of scenarios — meaning North Carolina can and should wait until the 2027-28 Carbon Plan cycle to consider whether or not to allow Duke to commit your hard-earned money to pay for it. Duke’s plan for these new fossil fuel power plants depends on everything going perfectly according to their forecast. And their forecasting track record is not especially great. Duke is counting on a massive wave of new “large-load” customers like data centers, to show up exactly on time. Patrylak points out **three reasons why North Carolinians should be skeptical**: 1. The timing is not a sure thing. Data centers and big factories often face delays in financing or construction. If they arrive just a few years later than Duke predicts, the need for that second gas power plant vanishes. 2. There is a much more affordable way to meet customer demand than building new gas plants. By investing in transmission upgrades, Duke Energy can route existing power more efficiently and delay the need for expensive new infrastructure. This protects North Carolinians’ household budgets by making better use of the power grid resources the state has already paid for, rather than forcing ratepayers to buy into entirely new, expensive fossil fuel projects. (As a reminder, monopoly utilities like Duke recover the costs of new fossil fuel plants from their ratepayers, who also bear the [cost of fuel prices](https://www.edf.org/media/new-analysis-if-duke-energys-gas-plant-ambitions-are-approved-average-residential-customer) that can swing dramatically with global market conditions). 3. Duke Energy can wait to build, but once it’s up, North Carolinians have to pay for it out of their household budgets, even if it’s ultimately not needed. Once a gas plant is built, North Carolina families and businesses are stuck paying for it for 30 or 40 years, regardless of whether the plant is used or was ever even needed to begin with. Patrylak warns that building too early preempts the option to build cleaner, more flexible options like solar, wind, and batteries — options that are far more affordable, easier on household bills, faster to deploy, and all without the decades of additional climate and health-harming air pollution that comes with new fossil fuel power plants. Keeping North Carolina’s energy options open -------------------------------------------- Patrylak’s main recommendation is a common-sense one: **Let’s keep our options open.** For example, in most modeled scenarios, the second gas plant under consideration was not needed until 2040, rather than 2033 as Duke asserts. Approving this plant would simply be premature, before North Carolina has a chance to see whether those data centers actually get built and if the demand for additional sources of electricity actually materializes. By waiting, if the data centers and the load don’t materialize, North Carolina households and other energy customers will have saved billions. If the demand does materialize, Duke can still build the plant, or better yet — a cleaner, more affordable alternative, later. Offshore wind should have been another option North Carolina could tap into if needed, but Duke’s improper modeling takes it off the table. As Patrylak noted in his filed testimony, Duke simply didn’t follow the NCUC’s directions when it came to modeling offshore wind. The Commission directed Duke to look into models where the utility would share the cost of wind farms with other partners to make it cheaper for customers (a common approach that’s been taken with other offshore wind projects), but Duke didn’t follow those instructions. If they had, offshore wind might have remained as another option, and would likely have been shown to be a much more competitive and affordable choice compared to building more gas plants than Duke alleges. North Carolina can protect ratepayers from rising costs while also meeting the state’s electricity needs -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The bottom line is that in their ambition to lock in approval of new, expensive, fossil fuel power plants, Duke is pushing a false choice — suggesting North Carolina has to choose between reliability and affordability. By looking more deeply into the modeling and rejecting Duke Energy’s all out push for new fossil fuel power plants, North Carolina can: - Protect households and other ratepayers from rising costs required to pay for unnecessary, polluting power plants. - Avoid locking in our dependence on costly fossil fuels and four more decades of climate and health- harming air pollution. - Keep our options open to choose cleaner, cheaper, more rapidly-scalable technologies to meet our actual electricity needs when the time comes. As the NCUC weighs Duke’s Carbon Plan, experts like Patrylak remind North Carolina lawmakers that the most prudent path is the one that prioritizes household budgets. **North Carolina can do that by keeping the most affordable energy options open — rather than locking in the most expensive ones — to meet future electricity needs.**