(The Center Square) – North Carolina’s leading residential energy company proposing a prospective rate increase of $17 to $30 a month on average for customers on Tuesday reported net income of nearly $5 billion on total operating revenues of $32.24 billion.
Duke Energy, which serves an estimated 39% of the state’s 11.1 million population through Duke Energy Carolinas and another 27% by Duke Energy Progress, had a 9.8% increase in net income. The company in November filed with the North Carolina Utilities Commission a request to generate $1 billion in annual revenue.
Approval isn’t guaranteed, with opposition to include Gov. Josh Stein and Attorney General Jeff Jackson, both first-term Democrats. Residential customers of Duke Energy Carolinas using 1,000 kilowatt-hours per month would have a bill go from $144.98 to $162.20 starting Jan. 1, with another $6.34 increase on Jan. 1, 2028.
Residential customers of Duke Energy Progress with same usage would go from $163.84 a month to $186.95, with a $6.59 bump coming a year later.
CEO Harry Sideris, in the earnings call Tuesday morning, said “contracted demand from AI and advanced manufacturing” are spurring growth. Power demand because of artificial intelligence data centers is a big part of the nation’s energy story nationwide.
Duke Energy serves 3.6 million retail customers statewide, a figure growing by 150,000 in the last two years. Most are residences and small businesses.
Population in the state, once an estimated 8 million at the 2000 census, rose to 9.5 million by 2010 and 10.4 million at the 2020 census. The July 1, 2025, estimate is up 7.2% in the last five years, to nearly 11.2 million, and the pace would land the state at 11.9 million at the 2030 census.
Duke bills its request in the name of toughening the grid against storms, maximizing efficiency in power plants, and saving customers money. Infrastructure projects are ongoing in Johnston County, downtown Asheville, former coal sites in Gaston County, and in natural gas units in Person, Rowan and Catawba counties.
“Duke Energy’s proposed rate hike is simply too high and comes as the company is also retreating on more affordable clean energy,” Stein said when the request was made last fall. “At a time when families are struggling to make ends meet, we should be doing everything we can to make life more affordable, not less.”
Duke Energy says the grid upgrades it has made tripled “self-healing technology since 2022, significantly reducing outages.” The technology serves 3 in 4 customers. Duke says in the first 10 months of 2025, it enabled 1.1 million customer outages to be avoided, saving nearly 2.6 million hours of total outage time.
“Duke Energy today announced billions in profits while hard-working North Carolina families struggle to pay bills that continue to increase,” said Meech Carter, clean energy campaigns director at the North Carolina League of Conservation Voters. “Duke has claimed that their pending merger will save families millions in costs and will keep rates low. At the same time, Duke is back for more. They want to raise residential rates by 18% – despite record profits and with no incentive to lower costs – and even require captive consumers to pay for plants that haven’t been built.”
Duke Energy Carolinas and Duke Energy Progress are subsidiaries of Duke Energy, the Fortune 150 company headquartered in Charlotte with more than 8.6 million electric customers in the Carolinas, Florida, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky. Its natural gas utilities serve 1.7 million in the Carolinas, Tennessee, Ohio and Kentucky.
