Duke Energy has announced it plans to invest $65 billion over the next five years to enable it to transition to low-energy carbon sources.
Brian Savoy, CFO of Duke Energy, said that the company will spend about 55 per cent on the power grid, with much of the rest going towards renewable electricity generation. He said: “Reliability and affordability are the two pillars that govern our decarbonisation strategy.”
Duke expects to reduce carbon emissions by over 50 per cent by 2030 and achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Savoy said the company plans to retire all its coal plants by 2035, when it will have about 30 GW of renewables and about 10 GW of energy storage. To ensure the grid remains reliable during the transition to lower carbon sources of energy, Savoy said: “We pressure test each planned retirement to make sure we have adequate resources.”
The company currently has about 16 GW of coal-fired power plants.