CEO says utility is investing in renewables and natural gas, and ‘will continue to decarbonize’
Utility executives are navigating a rapidly changing landscape: low prices, weak electricity demand and increasingly strict emissions rules.
Duke Energy Corp., the giant utility based in Charlotte, N.C., is leading the charge among large, coal-heavy power producers toward natural gas, solar and wind power. But the company, which churns out electricity for 7.4 million customers in the Carolinas and four other states, still gets about one-third of its power from coal plants. It also has to clean up dozens of aging coal-ash ponds, the large, wet pools where the company disposes of the fly ash left over from burning coal at its power plants.