Duke Energy placed 305 MW of solar energy into service in 2025.
Photo courtesy Duke Energy

“The fourth quarter marked a strong finish to a productive year, where we met every financial goal, progressed our economic development pipeline, broke ground on 5 gigawatts of new dispatchable generation resources and continued to deliver value for customers,” said Harry Sideris, Duke Energy president and chief executive officer, in the company’s Q4 earnings presentation.

While Sideris noted that “the cost of energy has always been and will remain a key focus,” he said Duke is continuing “to find new ways to deliver affordable energy for our customers, keeping our rates below the national average and rate changes below inflation.

“We enter 2026 with incredible momentum,” he continued, adding, “the fundamentals of our business have never been stronger.”

The utility also noted its success advancing new generation, including beginning construction on gas generation units, executing EPC contracts for approximately 5 GW of gas generation, and placing 305 MW of solar and 175 MW of storage into service.

Duke Energy has submitted an early site permit for a potential small modular reactor to be located at the Belews Creek energy complex in Stokes County, N.C.
Photo courtesy Duke Energy

Readying for the Future

Duke can trace its roots to the early 20th century, when brothers Benjamin and James Duke, sons of a tobacco industrialist, established the first power station on the Catawba River to generate electricity to run textile mills near Rick Hill, S.C. According to the state of North Carolina’s official website, Duke Power’s early advances in harnessing hydroelectric power and connecting existing electrical grids played an important role in the industrialization of North Carolina’s Piedmont region.

The ensuing decades brought entirely new challenges of load growth to Duke Power.

Southward migration and advanced manufacturing had been the biggest drivers of electrical load. In South Carolina, for example, a state once focused on textiles and clothing, automobile manufacturing sparked a completely new cycle of growth.

But the utility’s current expansion occurs at a time when AI and data centers are poised to dramatically escalate energy demand. “We are experiencing tremendous growth across our service area, with the Carolinas and Florida, in particular, being top regions in the nation for customer growth,” says Jeff Brooks, Duke Energy spokesperson.

Across Florida and the Carolinas, in particular, the utility is seeing a continuing increase in both residential and business customers.

According to the Census Bureau’s latest American Community Survey, in 2023 alone, the year for which the latest data is available, Florida saw a net migration gain of 44,504 residents 60 and over. North Carolina, the next highest state, had a net gain of just over 20,000.

At the same time, “advanced manufacturing, data centers and other large-load users being added to our system are driving the need to expand capacity and continue to modernize our system,” Brooks says. He adds that Duke’s ongoing infrastructure modernization strategy emphasizes “extending the life of existing generation facilities, expansion of renewable energy and battery storage and expanding the capacity and resiliency of our electric grid.”

Specifically, Duke’s plan includes delivering an estimated 14 GW of new electric capacity by 2031, with that number including more than 1 GW of planned uprates at existing plants, according to the utility. The latter includes projects that will add around 670 MW of capacity to existing gas facilities, approximately 250 MW from nuclear capacity and 85 MW of capacity from the utility’s hydro units. Construction is currently underway on about 5 GW of new natural gas generation in the Carolinas and Florida.

Duke is also accelerating battery storage deployment across its system, with around 4.5 GW of capacity planned to be online by 2031.

The company is also considering new nuclear development, and this past December submitted an early site permit (ESP) for a potential small modular reactor to be located at the Belews Creek energy complex in Stokes County, N.C.

A Duke Energy press release noted that this was the utility’s first such permit for a nuclear facility, and described it as “a risk-mitigation strategy” as the company pursues this option. An ESP resolves environmental and site safety issues and confirms suitability for new nuclear generation, thereby reducing future project risks should Duke decide to build new nuclear units in Stokes County in the future.

In January, Duke Energy readied more than 18,000 workers from across the country to respond to Winter Storm Fern.
Photo courtesy Duke Energy

“Nuclear energy has and will continue to play an essential role in powering communities in the Carolinas,” Kendal Bowman, Duke Energy’s North Carolina president, said in a press release. “Submitting an early site permit application is an important next step in assessing the potential for small modular reactors at the Belews Creek site.”

Duke says the ESP includes the possibility of six potential reactor technologies, including four small modular reactor designs and two non-light-water designs.

“We’re taking a strategic approach to new nuclear development that allows us to advance licensing activities while reducing risks and allowing technologies to mature,” said Kelvin Henderson, Duke Energy chief nuclear officer, in a press release.

Additionally, on March 26, the utility announced that South Carolina’s Public Service Commission approved its plans to construct new natural gas generation in Anderson County.

The approximately 1,400-MW station will be a combined-cycle plant with hydrogen capability, and it is anticipated to begin construction in mid-2027 and to start delivering electricity to customers by early 2031. The project marks Duke’s first development of new generation in South Carolina in a decade.

Noting the proposed project’s approval, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said in Duke’s press release, “Duke Energy has long been a strong partner in our state, and this project reflects the kind of forward-thinking planning that will ensure we meet those needs with reliable, efficient power for years to come.”

Duke invested $817 million to build the Asheville Combined Cycle Station, replacing two coal-fired units.
Photo courtesy Duke Energy

Increasing Resiliency

Beyond building new energy production and upgrading current facilities, the utility is making improvements to its transmission and distribution system, which it describes as the largest of its kind in the nation.

“We are upgrading poles and wire, hardening the system against severe weather, expanding capacity to support growth and increasing resiliency through the addition of smart, self-healing technology that can automatically detect power outages and restore service faster,” says Brooks.

The need for hardening the electrical system was put on display in January, when Winter Storm Fern struck a wide swath of the country—including North Carolina—with ice and snow and disrupted power to more than 150,000 Duke Energy customers in the state.

The utility had readied more than 18,000 workers in preparation for Fern, and Duke Energy’s Foundation awarded $100,000 to the American Red Cross in advance of the storm as well as $55,000 in rapid response grants to 21 organizations in Indiana.

For its delivery of an all-of-the-above energy development program, and for finding new ways to deliver affordable energy to customers by keeping its electricity rates in check, ENR Southeast recognizes Duke Energy as its ENR Southeast Owner of the Year.