Duke Energy North Carolina Opens Program Allowing Customers (Under Load Cap) To Procure Power Directly From Renewable Developers

August 26, 2019

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Copyright 2010-19 EnergyChoiceMatters.com
Reporting by Paul Ring • ring@energychoicematters.com

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Consistent with a recent North Carolina Utilities Commission (NCUC) decision, Duke Energy North Carolina will soon begin accepting applications under its Green Source Advantage (GSA) program in North Carolina, which allows 600 MW of load to directly contract with a renewable energy developer for supply

The GSA program offers large energy users the flexibility of selecting and negotiating all price terms directly with a renewable supplier of their choice, including the purchase of renewable energy certificates (RECs) generated by that renewable facility. The customer and developer can select from the following terms lengths: two years, five years, 10 years, 15 years or 20 years.

The GSA program will be available until the total capacity of 600 MW is fully subscribed. Of this 600-MW capacity, 100 MW will be set aside for military installations and 250 MW will be set aside for University of North Carolina institutions, according to language in North Carolina’s Competitive Energy Solutions law.

The remaining 250 MW will be reserved for large nonresidential customers -- 160 MW for Duke Energy Carolinas and 90 MW for Duke Energy Progress. Large businesses must have ≥ 1 MW demand at a single location or 5 MW aggregated maximum peak demand at multiple North Carolina service locations. GSA customers must also be located in the same service territory as the GSA facility

The GSA is essentially a buy-through program under which the customer contracts with the developer, and Duke enters a PPA with the developer.

The customer will be billed the negotiated GSA product charge and the GSA admin. charge, less GSA credits. Customers will receive GSA bill credits equal to the value of Duke's traditional generation displaced by the PPA. Duke Energy will use a GSA project’s specific characteristics to determine the avoided cost rates, which vary by times of the day and year depending on when the energy is needed. The actual bill credit amount depends on how much energy is generated and when. The bill credit will be calculated in one of two ways as elected by the customer: methodology using either the company’s two-year or five-year administratively established avoided cost, or an hourly avoided cost rate based on the expected marginal production cost and other directly related costs, plus the marginal capacity cost during hourly generation.

The GSA administrative charge shall be $375 per customer account, plus an additional $50 charge per additional account billed

The application window for the program opens Oct. 1 at 9 a.m. on a first-come, first-served basis.

Facilities that are used for the GSA program will be owned and operated by eligible renewable energy developers.

NCUC Dockets NO. E-2, SUB 1170; NO. E-7, SUB 1169

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