Duke Energy | Electrical Generation | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | North Carolina | Regulation
NC Approves Duke Energy Replacing Coal Plants with Natural Gas
We’re just now learning the good news about decisions by two different North Carolina agencies to approve four new gas-fired power plants that utility giant Duke Energy wants to build at two different N.C. sites. In early December, the N.C. Utilities Commission issued orders deeming the gas plants necessary at both sites. Then, on Dec. 20, the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality granted air quality permits for the four plants. All four will be fed by Marcellus/Utica molecules and are important new customers for our gas. Read More “NC Approves Duke Energy Replacing Coal Plants with Natural Gas”
Dominion Energy Virginia yesterday issued its “2024 Integrated Resource Plan” to the Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC) and the North Carolina Utilities Commission (NCUC). The document outlines a plan to meet rising power demand through significant investments in new power generation from “every source,” expansion and modernization of the power grid, energy storage, and energy efficiency programs. The problem is (from our perspective), the plan deemphasizes natural gas in favor of unreliable renewables, to the peril of Dominion’s customers. 
In September 2023, Dominion Energy and Enbridge co-announced that Dominion had agreed to sell the company’s remaining natural gas local distribution companies (LDCs) that Dominion owns to Enbridge for $14.0 billion, which includes $9.4 billion in cash plus the assumption of debt (see 
In February, MDN told you about Dominion Energy’s filing to build a new 45-mile pipeline to connect Equitrans’ (now EQT’s) MVP Southgate pipeline project with Duke Energy’s planned new natural gas power plants on Hyco Lake’s southern shore (see 
Last week, MDN brought you an article from RBN Energy detailing how more electricity and natural gas will soon be needed in Virginia and the Carolinas for a plethora of new projects in the works (see 
Dominion Energy wants to build a liquified natural gas (LNG) storage facility in Person County, North Carolina, to enhance natural gas service reliability for residential and business customers in the growing region (see 
They lost, and we won for the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project. “They” means the radical environmental left (nutters who irrationally hate all fossil energy, including natural gas), and “us” means those who support the common sense use of fossil energy and projects like MVP. According to the left, the next battleground is to block the construction of an extension of MVP called Southgate. The left will always tell you what they are planning. You only have to listen and have the courage to believe them.
Dominion Energy wants to build a liquified natural gas (LNG) storage facility in Person County, North Carolina, to enhance natural gas service reliability for residential and business customers in the growing region (see 
In 2018, Equitrans Midstream, the builder of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), proposed to extend MVP (when it’s done) by an extra 75 miles from the current terminus in Pittsylvania County, VA, to Alamance County, NC, to provide natural gas for heating and electric generation. The 75-mile extension is called MVP Southgate. Last year, Equitrans asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to extend Southgate’s project timeline an extra three years. FERC agreed in December (see 
In February, MDN brought you the news that utility giant Duke Energy plans to build a gigantic natural gas-fired power plant next to another planned gas-fired plant at the existing coal-fired Roxboro Plant on Hyco Lake, in Person County, NC (see 
The contours of how and why Equitrans Midstream decided to cut its MVP (Mountain Valley Pipeline) Southgate project in North Carolina are becoming apparent. We told you in January that Equitrans had decided to slice MVP Southgate in more than half (see