Duke Energy Indiana LLC revealed details of its upcoming 2021 integrated resource plan in a stakeholder presentation Nov. 16 already drawing criticism from environmental advocates.
The new details include the Duke Energy Corp. subsidiary's preferred portfolio scenario, ahead of the utility filing its integrated resource plan with the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission by Nov. 30, after receiving a one-month extension.
The utility's preferred portfolio includes a near-term rate increase averaging a compound annual growth rate of approximately about 1.3% over five years; transitioning its generation portfolio "at a reasonable cost"; reducing carbon emissions by 53% in 2030 and 83% in 2040, compared to 2005 levels; procuring 19% of energy needs on average from the market "across all years and scenarios" compared to 20% to 25% historically; and increasing generation fleet diversity, according to a slideshow presentation. Duke Energy Indiana, or DEI, would also add 1,221 MW of gas-fired generation, coming online in 2027 and running through 2040.
The plan shows DEI adding renewable generation, but also continuing fossil fuel generation through the next decade and in some cases through 2030.
DEI's solar capacity would increase from 47 MW to more than 3,000 MW and its wind capacity would increase from 100 MW to 2,800 MW by 2040 under the preferred portfolio. Under that scenario, DEI would retire the 1,005-MW Cayuga coal-fired units 1 and 2 by 2027, the 313-MW unit 5 at the Gibson coal-fired plant by 2025 and Gibson units 3 and 4, totaling 1,262 MW, by 2029. Gibson units 1 and 2, totaling 1,270 MW, would shutter by 2035, under the preferred portfolio.
The 618-MW Edwardsport IGCC, which uses coal-derived synthetic gas as its primary fuel and began service in 2013, would retire by 2035, along with the 310-MW Noblesville combined-cycle gas-fired plant.
The Sierra Club criticized DEI's plan for continuing to run more than 2,000 MW of coal plants beyond 2030 and planning to build an additional 1,000 MW of gas generation over the next 10 years.
"The plan is flawed because Duke's assumptions are based on their desire to keep burning fossil fuels no matter the impact on people or the environment," Wendy Bredhold, senior representative for the Sierra Club's "Beyond Coal" campaign in Indiana, said in a statement Nov. 16. "Indiana regulators should be empowered to reject such a plan, as regulators are in other Duke states."
Bredhold was referring to two Duke Energy integrated resource plans previously shot down by South Carolina regulators for subsidiaries Duke Energy Carolinas LLC and Duke Energy Progress LLC.
"While Duke Energy's newly-announced integrated resource plan is an improvement from before, it fails to respond to the climate crisis as the crisis it is," said Rahul Durai, founding member and director of operations and legislative organizing for Confront the Climate Crisis. "It's unacceptable for Duke to continue to burn coal until 2035 and burn fracked gas interminably, as it has proposed."
