Raleigh — A fast-evolving energy bill at the General Assembly is putting Duke Energy on notice: no shutting down big coal or other baseload plants until nuclear replacements are officially lined up. Backers say it is about keeping the lights on as power demand surges across the Carolinas. Critics see a recipe for locking customers into long, expensive nuclear projects.
What the bill would do
The proposed committee substitute to Senate Bill 730 would rewrite part of North Carolina’s carbon-neutrality law so the Utilities Commission could not sign off on retiring a baseload power plant until it has issued a certificate of public convenience and necessity for a nuclear facility that would replace that generation, according to the bill text from the North Carolina General Assembly. The language applies to coal and gas baseload units and is packaged together with separate sections dealing with data-center permitting and CEPS set-asides.
Duke's filings and timeline
Duke’s 2025 Carolinas Resource Plan, filed with regulators last fall, already assumes slower coal retirements and highlights Belews Creek and the William States Lee site as potential homes for new reactors, according to Duke Energy. The company has also submitted an early site permit application that would clear the way for possible small modular reactors at Belews Creek in late 2025 and has said it could bring on roughly 600 MW of advanced nuclear by 2037, with a first unit potentially online as early as 2036, per a Duke Energy news release from Duke Energy.
How lawmakers pitched it
Rep. Matthew Winslow, R-Franklin, a primary cosponsor, told the House Energy and Public Utilities Committee that the bill is designed to safeguard baseload reliability and to avoid taking plants offline before firm replacements are in the pipeline, according to reporting by WUNC. Supporters frame the proposal as a guardrail while the grid strains to keep up with new industrial loads, including power-hungry data centers.
Critics and cost concerns
Environmental and clean-energy advocates argue the requirement would push planning away from what they describe as the quickest and cheapest options – solar, wind and battery storage – and toward large nuclear projects that take years to build and can blow past budgets. “Limiting North Carolina’s access to the lowest cost and fastest-to-build sources of power – solar, wind and battery storage – guarantees higher bills and more health-harming pollution,” Will Scott of the Environmental Defense Fund said in a statement to WUNC. That reporting also points to the recent Vogtle nuclear expansion in Georgia, which was hit with multiyear delays and multibillion-dollar cost overruns.
What’s next
The bill was re-referred to the House Energy and Public Utilities Committee after action in mid-May, according to the official bill history from the North Carolina General Assembly. If S730 moves forward, it would change how the Utilities Commission evaluates plant retirements and could push back Duke’s planned coal closures while regulators and the Public Staff scrutinize the company’s resource plan and any nuclear licensing moves. Duke says it intends to keep working with policymakers and regulators to juggle reliability, customer costs and cleaner generation as those reviews unfold.
