![]() In 2007, when North Carolina passed a law requiring electric companies to help customers reduce their energy use, gas and electric utilities reached an agreement on the contours of those demand-side programs. Outpacing the rate of population growth, the number of residential gas customers also rose, according to Energy Information Administration data compiled by the Rocky Mountain Institute. Natural gas use skyrocketed, mostly on the backs of electric power companies. Both sectors offered various incentive programs without triggering claims of “destructive competition” that is prohibited by law. Still, in the ensuing decades, electric and gas interests achieved tenuous harmony. Mary Lynne Grigg - a lawyer for Duke in the 90s who now represents PSNC, a gas distribution company owned by Dominion Energy - told the utilities commission at a hearing last year that the whole process “was not productive for either industry at the end.” ‘We need to get along’ Thirty years later, these fuel-switching battles still live in infamy. Plus, any program that appeared to influence fuel choice would be considered “promotional” and would be paid for by shareholders, not ratepayers. ![]() ![]() In the gas companies’ favor, the statute that prevented unfair competition endured. “The matter of the relative efficiency of electricity versus natural gas under various scenarios,” the commission said, “cannot now be resolved.” Further, it ruled that its evaluation of electricity efficiency programs, “should not include consideration of the impact of an electric program on the sales of natural gas, or vice versa.” ![]() The gas companies didn’t simply call for the reform or rejection of Duke’s programs: They wanted the commission to deem gas appliances inherently more efficient.īut in a ruling on a trio of related cases, the panel declined. Comment periods and rulemakings stretched over years. The controversy set off weeks of hearings before the North Carolina Utilities Commission. While the electric companies were arguably bigger offenders, he said, “there was a lot of finger-pointing and complaints filed with the commission by both parties.” “The programs were much more overtly about fuel switching,” McLawhorn said. Scientists were just beginning to grasp the gravity of climate change.Įlectric companies were paying developers to make subdivisions all electric in this period, while gas companies offered rebates for gas heat and hot water installations, said James McLawhorn, head of the energy division at the Public Staff, the state’s ratepayer advocate. Gas furnaces and water heaters were markedly more efficient - and generally viewed as more environmentally friendly - than their electric counterparts. Electricity was produced almost entirely from nuclear and coal natural gas wouldn’t be used in a power plant until 2000. Duke was decades from buying Piedmont Natural Gas or merging with the state’s other major electric utility. The seeds of the current controversy were planted in the mid-1990s, in an energy landscape almost unrecognizable today. “A couple examples of new developments going all electric,” said Mark Kresowik, a deputy director for Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign in the Mid-Atlantic, is no reason for regulators to reject such an “incredibly important and beneficial program.” ‘Not productive for either industry’ According to literally every stakeholder involved but the gas companies, Duke’s efficiency rebate program won’t have that effect.īut the nationwide trend appears to have the gas industry on edge: It’s pushing a bill in the state legislature to prevent local governments from banning new gas hookups, even though none are on the horizon.Īnd it’s derailing an incentive program lauded by efficiency advocates and builders based largely on field reports that could amount to nothing more than coincidence.
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