DEC and DEP are subsidiaries of Duke Energy Corporation. Duke Energy Corp. offers energy services to approximately 7.4 million customers in the Carolinas, Florida, Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana, and retail natural gas services to more than 1.5 million customers in the Carolinas, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. DEC and DEP are regulated public utilities primarily engaged in the generation, transmission, distribution and sale of electricity in portions of North Carolina and South Carolina. DEC owns 20,200 megawatts of energy capacity, supplying electricity to 2.7 million residential, commercial and industrial customers across a 24,000-square-mile service area. DEP owns 13,000 megawatts of energy capacity, supplying electricity to 1.6 million residential, commercial and industrial customers across a 29,000-square-mile service area.
The 2023 request for proposal (“RFP”) process is currently underway and not accepting additional proposals at this time. The 2023 RFP had the following target:
DEC and DEP are currently jointly implementing the 2024 RFP to procure new solar photovoltaic generating facility resources and new solar photovoltaic paired with lithium ion battery energy systems. The 2024 RFP has the following target:
The solar and SPS resource types in the 2024 RFP will be directly interconnected to the DEC and DEP transmission systems in North Carolina and South Carolina to reliably serve the Companies’ customers’ future energy needs.
The Companies are seeking new solar resources through the 2024 RFP process to be acquired and owned and operated by DEC or DEP (“Utility Ownership Track”) or that will be owned and operated by independent power producers and that will sell the full output including all renewable and environmental attributes generated by the facility and delivered to DEC or DEP via the Companies’ renewable power purchase agreement (“PPA”) (“Controllable PPA Track”). The 2024 RFP is not soliciting non-solar resources.
The 2024 RFP pre-solicitation process is currently open for market participant review, questions and comments on the draft 2024 RFP. The Companies plan to open the bid window on August 15, 2024.
Further details about both the 2023 and 2024 RFP processes can be found in the “2023 RFP Documents” and “2024 RFP Documents” sections of this website.
The Companies have retained Charles River Associates (“CRA”) to administer the RFP processes as an Independent Evaluator (“IE”). CRA is responsible for reviewing and utilizing the 2023 and 2024 SPS Program Methodology to evaluate all Proposals in accordance with the evaluation process established and described herein and ensuring that all Proposals are treated equitably throughout the RFP. Several important milestone dates for the RFP processes are shown below: