Duke’s New Energy Plan for Data Centers Requires Consumer Protections Now

Duke Energy released its latest long-range energy plan proposing two additional gas plants and extending coal plant operations based on speculative data center demand, prompting the Sierra Club to urge the South Carolina Public Service Commission to adopt strong consumer protection safeguards. The utility cites 8,000 megawatts of demand from 43 large load customers in advanced development and 6,000 megawatts in its development pipeline, while residential growth has declined from 1.9% to 1.3% and retail demand from 1.8% to 1.2%.

Duke’s New Energy Plan for Data Centers Requires Consumer Protections Now Support CleanTechnica's work through a Substack subscription https://cleantechnica.substack.com/subscribe , on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/cleantechnica , or on Stripe https://cleantechnica.fundjournalism.org/contribute/ . Help us produce all of the high-quality, original content we publish week after week https://cleantechnica.com/2026/07/14/10/ despite the challenges of content-scraping AI, antisocial media, inflation, and other hurdles. COLUMBIA, S.C. — Duke Energy released its latest long-range energy plan, which proposes two additional gas plants and extends costly coal plant operations based on speculative data center developments, according to its own documents released last Friday https://dms.psc.sc.gov/Web/Dockets/Detail/119498 . This alarming development underscores the need for the South Carolina Public Service Commission to adopt strong consumer protection guardrails for residential and small business customers to protect them from data centers. “People are mad that our bills keep going to pay for Duke’s record profits and its expensive, pollution-heavy energy infrastructure intended to serve data centers,” said Paul Black, Sierra Club’s Senior Campaign Organizer in South Carolina . “We need Duke’s regulators at the Public Service Commission to establish the strongest consumer protection safeguards for residential customers and small businesses because we’ve lived and worked here for generations, and the richest companies in the world should fully pay for their cost of service.” Duke notes https://www.duke-energy.com/-/media/pdfs/our-company/carolinas-resource-plan/2026/appendix-d-load-forecast-web.pdf?rev=395d0167a19f4c8babc09df812c42a45 it has 8,000 megawatts MW of demand from 43 large load customers in “advanced development.” The utility also notes it has 6,000 megawatts of demand in its “development pipeline” that are in the “earlier stages of the process,” meaning there are no signed contracts with the utility as it plans to build new power plants to serve these speculative customers. As Duke plans for significant new demand from data centers, energy demand from residential growth has trended down from 1.9 percent down to 1.3 percent while retail demand has reduced from 1.8 percent to 1.2 percent. Duke has the opportunity to make serious investments in solar and battery storage, but its half-step forward on clean investments is undermined by doubling down on coal and gas. The Sierra Club has consistently pushed https://www.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2025/12/settlement-reached-duke-energy-carolinas-rate-increase for large load tariffs and protections for customers in South Carolina. The Public Service Commission docket on large load customers, where it can add consumer protections for data centers impacts, is here https://dms.psc.sc.gov/Web/Dockets/Detail/119719 and the Sierra Club’s filing is here https://dms.psc.sc.gov/Attachments/Matter/a71cec93-5720-46d3-b718-2c9107ab7cbe . Sign up for CleanTechnica's Weekly Substack for Zach and Scott's in-depth analyses and high level summaries https://cleantechnica.substack.com/subscribe , sign up for our daily newsletter https://mailchi.mp/cleantechnica/daily-newsletter , and follow us on Google News https://news.google.com/publications/CAAqLQgKIidDQklTRndnTWFoTUtFV05zWldGdWRHVmphRzVwWTJFdVkyOXRLQUFQAQ Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? Want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here https://cleantechnica.com/contact/ . Sign up for our daily newsletter for 15 new cleantech stories a day https://mailchi.mp/cleantechnica/daily-newsletter . Or sign up for our weekly one on top stories of the week https://mailchi.mp/cleantechnica/weekly-newsletter if daily is too frequent. CleanTechnica uses affiliate links. See our policy here https://cleantechnica.com/cleantechnica-editorial-ethics/ . CleanTechnica's Comment Policy https://cleantechnica.com/cleantechnica-comment-policy/