Regulators in North Carolina have approved Duke Energy’s plan to replace some of the utility’s coal-fired units with natural gas-fired generation.
The North Carolina Utilities Commission in December issued orders in support of the gas-fired units. The state’s Dept. of Environmental Quality (DEQ) on Dec. 20 granted air permits for the gas-fired plants.
Duke plans to replace two of the four coal-fired units at Person County’s Roxboro plant with gas-fired combined cycle units by 2029 that would have 1,360 MW of generation capacity. The utility in its permit application said the new turbines would enter service by 2029 as part of the Person County Energy Complex. The coal-fired Units 1 and 4 at the site would be retired, while the coal-fired Units 2 and 3 would continue to operate until 2034.
Duke also plans to replace two of the four coal-fired units at the 2,100-MW Marshall plant in Catawba County with gas-fired generators that would have a total of 850 MW of capacity. The Marshall station was commissioned in 1965.
“We appreciate the support of Person and Catawba counties. We look forward to working together as we transition to cleaner energy in a manner that keeps North Carolina’s economy thriving, while continuing to protect grid reliability and affordability for our customers,” Bill Norton, a Duke Energy spokesman, said in a written statement.
Duke has said it needs to use natural gas, instead of intermittent renewable energy, in order to maintain grid stability and reliability as it transitions away from coal-fired generation. Duke last year said the utility plans to have at least 17.5 GW of solar energy in its portfolio within 15 years.
The Utilities Commission approved the new facilities as part of its joint carbon dioxide reduction and resource planning process. Critics have argued that Duke should invest in more renewable energy.
“We are disappointed that the two permits have been granted and we’re hopeful that steps can be taken to address what we see as unfortunately an increasing trend for more and more gas to be built out in our state, which is contrary to what state law requires and is contrary to the state’s overall clean transition objectives,” Munashe Magarira, a Southern Environmental Law Center senior attorney, told The News & Observer newspaper in Charlotte.
The DEQ as part of its approval said Duke must shut down the two remaining coal-fired boilers at the Marshall plant once the new gas-fired units are operating. Duke said that after 2029 there will be a period of time when the two new gas-fired turbines at Roxboro are operating along with the current four coal-fired units, giving the station more than 4 GW of generation capacity until two of the coal-fired boilers are retired.
—Darrell Proctor is a senior editor for POWER.
