NC Commission Rejects Ideological Attempt to Block Solar Permit

By Steve Levitas and Tyler Norris

Steve Levitas is a former member of the NC Utilities Commission, appointed by Governor Josh Stein, and previously served as SVP for Regulatory and Government Affairs at Pine Gate Renewables. Tyler Norris is a J.B. Duke Fellow at Duke University, where his PhD research focuses on electric power systems.

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It’s no secret that an anti-solar ideology has taken hold over segments of the American political right – so much so that Elon Musk himself now regularly uses his X account of 223 million followers to push back, echoed by GOP moderates like Senator Thom Tillis.

Yet even the more hardline voices of this movement have rarely pushed to terminate mature solar projects with fully executed contracts. To date, anti-solar advocacy has largely targeted earlier-stage projects seeking zoning approval at the county level.

But in an extraordinary development, a new commissioner on the North Carolina Utilities Commission (NCUC), Donald van der Vaart, broke with his fellow commissioners and voted to deny a key permit for a major, late-stage solar project. This is not just any project: it's a 275 MW solar facility procured by Duke Energy Progress under a well-established procurement program created by the Commission, at the direction of the state legislature, and fully compliant with an NCUC-approved resource plan. It would become the largest solar farm in the Carolinas.

Specifically, van der Vaart called for rejecting the project’s application for a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (CPCN). CPCN applications for solar farms are rarely controversial, and it’s extremely unusual for them to be rejected; we are unaware of a single past instance of rejection for a project intended for bidding into Duke Energy’s solar procurement program, let alone an already-procured project.

According to recent polling by Conservatives for Clean Energy, an overwhelming majority of North Carolinians support the development of new solar and wind resources to help meet the state’s growing energy needs (see Figure 1). They recognize that a diversity of energy supply will allow the state to achieve a balance of reliability and affordability to address the inevitable need to retire aging, inefficient and dirty coal-fired power plants. And apart from their environmental and public health benefits, the zero-fuel cost of solar and wind provides an important hedge against the risk of natural gas and coal price volatility and supply constraints.

Figure 1: Poll of NC Registered Voters, March 2025

This all-of-the above approach was reflected in the order issued by the NCUC last fall directing Duke Energy to develop a mix of new solar, wind, battery storage, natural gas, and nuclear resources while implementing an orderly retirement of its coal plants, which on average are over fifty years old. Although the Commission’s plan was informed by a legislative directive to take “all reasonable steps” to achieve a 70% reduction in Duke’s North Carolina carbon emissions by 2030, the South Carolina Public Service Commission adopted a virtually identical plan even though that state has no carbon-reduction mandate. That’s because it found that a plan based on resource diversity was the most reasonable and prudent way to meet growing energy demand while protecting ratepayers.

In contrast to this reasonable, balanced approach, van der Vaart’s dissent represents a stark example of what some have called an “anti-solar mind virus.” His rationale relies on factual inaccuracies and misleading assertions, and his factual findings are unsupported by the official record. For example, he claims that solar failed to perform as expected during the June 23-25 heatwave – which is demonstrably false, as evidenced by the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Hourly Grid Monitor. In fact, peak solar production on June 23 was the second-highest recorded between June 20 and July 20, and on June 24 and 25 it was significantly above average over this period for both Duke Energy Progress and Duke Energy Carolinas (see Figure 2; van der Vaart also erroneously and sensationally asserts that NC’s grid experienced “a near-miss blackout” during the heat wave).

Figure 2: Electricity Generation in Duke Energy Progress

He further justifies his opposition by relying on a bill passed this summer by the NC General Assembly (SB 266) that would remove the state’s interim decarbonization standard. However, that bill was vetoed by Governor Stein and has no force or effect unless the Governor’s veto is overridden by the legislature [Update 7/29/25: today the NC General Assembly over-rode the Governor’s veto on SB 266]. Even if an override occurs, there is no evidence to suggest that would eliminate the need for solar procurement, let alone from one of the region’s least-cost projects. Such an asset would almost certainly be procured even without the state’s interim decarbonization standard, but a material delay could result in forfeiting federal tax credits, requiring ratepayers to pay more for the same power plant.

Finally, van der Vaart makes the erroneous claim that “solar facilities without battery storage increase reliance on dispatchable resources,” ignoring the fact that battery storage does not need to be paired on-site with solar plants to store the output of those facilities in support of system reliability – which is partly why the Commission previously approved Duke Energy’s own proposal to procure significant volumes of standalone battery storage.

None of this is to suggest that every solar project should automatically be approved or procured. On the contrary, competitive procurement within a Commission-approved resource plan exists specifically to identify the most cost-effective projects while ensuring system reliability. Nor does this mean solar is a perfect resource – it has obvious limitations, particularly for supporting resource adequacy during winter morning peaks. But it is well understood that solar production is strongly correlated with summer heat, since in the vast majority of cases, the hottest summer days are among the sunniest.

Nowhere is this clearer than in Texas, where solar output routinely surges during extreme heat events, precisely when electricity demand spikes due to widespread air conditioning use. During ERCOT’s record-breaking 2024 heatwave, when ERCOT set an all-time peak demand of nearly 86,000 MW on August 20, solar generation reached almost 20,800 MW – contributing roughly a quarter of midday power and keeping wholesale prices in check (see Figure 3). As the sun set and solar faded, battery storage picked up the slack, discharging a record 3,927 MW to help meet evening net load, which peaked near 71,000 MW.

Figure 3: ERCOT Peak Demand Record on August 20, 2024

As the CEO of its grid operator said at the time, “Over the last year, we’ve seen significant additions of energy storage resources, solar resources and wind resources, with a few additions also on the thermal side, the gas side. All of that has helped to contribute to less scarcity conditions during the peak periods of summer, like we experienced last year.” As a result, in 2025 ERCOT predicted “the lowest chance of power supply emergencies in years.”

Fortunately, as noted, van der Vaart’s fellow bipartisan commissioners didn’t buy his arguments and made the appropriate decision to grant the project’s CPCN, which can now proceed with construction to support the state’s electricity needs. Nevertheless, this event vividly illustrates a disturbing trend in ideologically motivated efforts to obstruct infrastructure development by exploiting local, state, and even federal permitting powers. If left unchecked, such tactics will exacerbate the country’s already-extreme supply constraints and limit our ability to accommodate new electricity demand.

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