Striving for Continued Progress

In 2018, Duke Energy continued to invest in sustainable energy measures in multiple ways:

• Modernizing the energy grid. The company is investing $25 billion between 2017 and 2026 to create a smarter energy grid that will accommodate additional renewable energy and improve system performance in many aspects – customer control and convenience, security and service reliability. 
• Generating cleaner energy. The company continues to make significant progress in reducing its environmental footprint – reducing carbon dioxide emissions by closing coal-fired power plants and investing $11 billion between 2017 and 2026 in cleaner natural gas-fired power plants, solar energy and other renewable generation sources.

Back in 2005, coal accounted for 58% of the power the company produced. Fast forward to 2018, coal was only 33% of the total generation and over 38% of the power produced was from zero carbon sources. Carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions are down 31% since 2005, and the company has set our sights on even greater progress. By 2030, only one-fifth of the power Duke Energy produces will be from coal, and 80% of the energy produced will be from zero- and lower-CO₂ emissions sources. Duke Energy has set an ambitious goal to reduce total CO₂ emissions 40% by 2030, compared to 2005 levels, which is consistent with a pathway to achieve a science-based climate target.

Reducing reliance on coal, leveraging cleaner natural gas energy and expanding renewables on our system is part of our long-term investment strategy to continue to drive carbon out of our system. As we have done for over a decade, we’ll consider CO₂ emissions in our investment planning and focus on finding ways to quickly deploy emerging technologies into our portfolio.