Duke Energy 2018 IRP: Modeling an Alternative Resource Portfolio

North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association
Project completed April 2019

On behalf of the North Carolina Sustainable Business Association, Synapse modeled two scenarios: a "Duke IRP" scenario, which included the Company's planned retirements and additions of more than 9 GW of new gas capacity, and a "Clean Energy" scenario, which included increased penetrations of solar and battery storage technologies.

We compared these two scenarios based on energy, capacity, emissions, health impacts, rates/bills, GDP, and jobs in North Carolina. Synapse also examined the same impacts for ratepayers in South Carolina on behalf of the South Carolina Solar Business Alliance. Synapse analyses found that renewable and battery resource options are comparably cost-effective to new natural gas for Carolina ratepayers, and offer other benefits as well.