Duke Rate Hike 2024

Dirty Duke doubles down on coal to the detriment of our wallets and our environment

Duke is already Indiana’s biggest slacker when it comes to the energy transition, with almost 90% of their electricity coming from fossil fuels. Coal is a key driver of Duke’s rate hike, with the monopoly protecting their profits at the expense of consumers and our environment.

The quicker Duke reduces its coal consumption, the quicker we can lower costs - and risks to our health and our environment - associated with coal ash.

The more coal Duke burns, the higher our bills. That’s why it’s deeply concerning to see Duke double down on coal in a number of ways with this rate case, including:

• Burning dramatically more coal in 2024 and 2025 than they have in the last few years.
• Delaying the retirement of four of their coal plant units, including Gibson Unit 5, a Super Polluter, and Cayuga Unit 2, which has a history of groundwater contamination.
• Charging customers more so Duke can profit from their overstock of coal. In 2021 and 2022, Duke entered into some bad long-term coal supply contracts for far more coal than they needed, and now has a huge overstock of coal at their power plants. In this rate case, Duke is requesting for customers to bail them out for their bad coal supply strategy and Customers are supposed to pay for electricity - not research and development! If Duke wants to flush nine million dollars down the research and development toilet, their shareholders should pick up the tab.reward them for having far more coal inventory than is necessary for them to operate their coal plants reliably.
• Adding insult to injury, Duke also wants $9 MILLION to study carbon capture and sequestration at the already expensive, inefficient, and scandal ridden Edwardsport power plant. Over a decade ago, Duke studied a slightly different version of CCS at Edwardsport. At that point, CCS would have increased the plant’s construction cost by 37% and decreased its energy output by 20%.