Where does NC stand on solar energy generation in the Southeast? That’s complicated.

A Duke Energy utility operating in North Carolina leads the Southeast in solar energy, according to a recent report, even as the company’s other utility lags.

Duke Energy Progress, which operates mostly in Eastern North Carolina and around Asheville, leads the nation in solar energy per customer and is expected to continue doing so in 2026, according to the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy’s annual Solar in the Southeast report. Duke Energy Carolinas, which operates mostly around Charlotte and Greensboro, ranks sixth of 14 utilities now and is poised to slip below average by 2026.

The report reflects a complicated story for solar energy in other ways, too. With 4,760 megawatts of installed solar energy, North Carolina trails only Florida in the seven-state region now. But Georgia is poised to surpass NC in wattage per customer next year and in total installed solar by 2025.

The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy also projects North Carolina to fall from the second-highest amount in solar energy per customer — 793 watts in 2022 — to below average in the region by 2026. Per the report, North Carolina is expected to generate 1,181 watts of solar per customer, slightly below the region’s projected average.

Bryan Jacob, SACE’s solar program director and the report’s author, said North Carolina adopted a significant amount of solar in the early 2010s, reaching as high as second in installed solar in the country. This is the sixth version of the report.

“North Carolina came out of the blocks really fast, and it’s hard to sustain a good lead,” Jacob said, noting that North Carolina had a solar power purchase agreement structure that was favorable to development and a state tax incentive.

The tax credits mostly expired int 2015, and 2017’s House Bill 589 altered the power purchase agreement.

Matt Abele, a spokesman for the N.C Sustainable Energy Association, pointed to that bill as a key culprit in other states beginning to surpass North Carolina, both nationally and in the region. House Bill 589 decreased the size of solar panel facilities that could automatically be connected to Duke’s grid, cut power purchase agreements from 15 years to five years and added a competitive procurement process.

“We essentially slowed utility scale solar to a halt in North Carolina,” Abele said, adding that transmission headaches around the same time also made installation difficult.

That growth has slowed enough that North Carolina’s projected solar installation of 1,682 megawatts over the next five years ranks 30th in the nation, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association.

Duke Energy officials see North Carolina’s legislative landscape differently.

Randy Wheeless, a Duke spokesman, said HB 589 and then 2021’s House Bill 951 introduced certainty, allowing North Carolina to steadily add solar panels without the fits and starts seen in some other states.

“Certainty, I think, is good for clean energy, and I think there are a lot of states in the nation that are still wrestling with a lot of those issues,” Wheeless said.

Duke Energy Carolinas solar

As far as Duke Energy Carolinas’ slower adoption of solar, Wheeless pointed to geography.

Large solar farms in the state effectively began in Eastern North Carolina, Wheeless said, with farmers leasing old tobacco and soy farms to developers. Those solar farms are in Duke Energy Progress’ service territory.

“Eastern North Carolina just got a jump on the rest of the state,” Wheeless said.

But now, he added, there is more solar activity in the Piedmont and west of Charlotte, as developers seek out new swaths of land on which to build the facilities.

Jacob of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy noted that Duke Energy Carolinas not only has less solar, but also more customers. The organization ranks utilities on energy from solar per customer, so Duke Energy Carolinas was hurt on both ends of the equation.

Carbon Plan’s impact

In its initial plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, the N.C. Utilities Commission found that “significant new solar generation” would be necessary to meet the goal of a 70% reduction in emissions by 2030.

The commission’s final plan directed Duke Energy to procure 2,350 megawatts of solar energy by 2024 that should be in service by 2028. That’s slightly more energy than Duke’s coal- and natural gas-powered Belews Creek Steam Station in Stokes County can produce at its peak.

Environmental advocates and renewable energy trade groups have criticized the Carbon Plan, arguing that it doesn’t direct Duke Energy to add nearly enough solar energy quickly enough to meet the targets set out by House Bill 951. An alternative plan filed by some of those groups envisioned a plan that would put 5,200 megawatts of solar on the grid by 2024.

Duke plans to file an updated plan in South Carolina in early August describing how it will generate energy across the Carolinas. That will be followed shortly after by a similar plan in North Carolina.

“We expect to see solar yet again play a role in meeting those Carbon Plan goals in Duke’s two utilities there,” Maggie Shober, SACE’s research director, said during a webinar introducing the report.

Wheeless, the Duke spokesman, couldn’t yet discuss how much of a role solar could play in the updated plan as compared to the original one.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that solar’s going to continue to be built in North Carolina and still be a big part of the energy mix here,” Wheeless said.

This story was produced with financial support from 1Earth Fund, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners, as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work.