Duke Energy submitted new documents to the North Carolina Utilities Commission on Wednesday expressing the desire to build two natural gas-fired power plants in Person County, north of the Raleigh-Durham area. The utility had previously planned to build one new gas-fired plant on the location to replace a coal-fired plant that is scheduled to retire in 2028 or 2029. However, Duke has revised its projections for electric demand in North Carolina upward, so that it now plans to build a second plant on the same site.
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- Analyst Insight
Duke Plans Additional Transco Gas-Fired Power Plant in North Carolina
Duke Energy applied last week to build yet another gas-fired power plant in North Carolina. This will provide additional demand for Transco gas in the capacity-constrained Zone 5.
- Blog
Back Down South - Power Generation Projects and Natural Gas Demand in the U.S. Southeast
We talk a lot here in the RBN blogosphere about the bearish market effects of the Shale Revolution, and frequently highlight the U.S. Northeast natural gas region — rapidly growing gas production from the Marcellus/Utica; oversupplied, trapped-gas conditions; and resulting regional price discounts. These dynamics are driving massive investments in pipeline reversals, expansions and new capacity to move the gas to market. Northeast producers are counting on that increase in takeaway capacity to relieve price pressure and balance the market. But all this gas moving out of the region needs a home. Fortunately, new demand is emerging, from exports (to Mexico and overseas LNG) and into the U.S. power sector. One of the big growth regions is the U.S. Southeast, where power utilities are investing heavily in building out their fleet of gas-fired generation plants and are banking on this new, unfettered access to cheap Marcellus/Utica gas supply. Today’s blog provides an update on power generation projects coming up in the southern half of the Eastern Seaboard, based on a recent report by our good friends at Natural Gas Intelligence — “Southern Exposure: Gas-Fired Generators Rising in the Southeast; But Will Northeast Gas Show Up?”
- Blog
Give More Power to the People - Virginia and Carolinas Utilities' Focus: Gas-Fired Plants and Solar
Utilities in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, all anticipating rapid growth in electricity demand through the 2030s, have ambitious plans for renewables but are acknowledging that solar and offshore wind will need to be backed up by a lot more natural gas-fired generation. Fortunately, the new Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) and planned expansions to it and the Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line (Transco) system are providing utilities in the three-state region with enhanced access to Marcellus/Utica-sourced natural gas, albeit at premium prices to gas users closer to that production. In today’s RBN blog, we continue our look at rising demand for electricity and gas in Virginia and the Carolinas with a review of what the largest utilities there are planning.
