Duke Energy Carolinas and Duke Energy Progress

Duke Energy Carolinas, LLC (“DEC”) and Duke Energy Progress, LLC (“DEP” and, together with DEC, the “Companies”) 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.

Requests for Proposals

DEC and DEP are jointly issuing this 2022 solar procurement program (“2022 SP Program”) request for proposals (“RFP”) to procure new solar photovoltaic generating facility resources 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 this RFP to be acquired and owned and operated by DEC or DEP (“Utility Ownership Track”) or that will be owned and operated by third parties and that will sell the full output including all renewable and environmental attributes generated by the facility to DEC or DEP via the Companies’ renewable power purchase agreement (“PPA”) (“Controllable PPA Track”). The 2022 SP Program RFP is not soliciting non-solar resources and is also not seeking proposals that include energy storage systems as part of the proposed facility.

The RFP will procure a minimum target volume of 700 MW, which may be increased based upon future North Carolina Utilities Commission review of the Carolinas Carbon Plan. The 2022 SP Program pre-solicitation process is now open and the Companies plan to open the bid window on May 31, 2022. Further details about the RFP can be found in the “RFP Documents” section.

CRA International (“CRA”)

The Companies have retained Charles River Associates (“CRA”) to administer the RFP process as an Independent Evaluator (“IE”). CRA is responsible for reviewing and utilizing the 2022 SP 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 process are shown below:

Stakeholder Meeting #1 April 18, 2022, 2-4:30 pm ET
Stakeholder Meeting #2 May 13, 2022, 9-11 am ET                  
RFP Issued June 20, 2022 (Bid Input forms are available on the RFP Documents page)
Notice of Intent to Respond Form Due June 22, 2022 (NOIR form is available on the RFP Documents page)
Proposals Due July 22, 2022, Noon ET