NC Regulators Weigh Duke Energy Progress Rate Settlement That the Company Calls a 6.8% Residential Increase and the Attorney General Calls 9.3%

The Same Deal, Two Different Numbers

Duke Energy's president testified under oath that the new rate settlement would raise the average North Carolina residential bill by 6.8% over two years^[7][10]. The state's attorney general looked at the same document and put the number at 9.3%^[8][9][10]. Neither side disputes the settlement's terms. They disagree about how to describe them to the people who will pay them.

The gap matters because North Carolina regulators are close to deciding whether to approve it. Duke Energy Progress, which serves eastern North Carolina and the Asheville area, filed its settlement with the North Carolina Utilities Commission on Aug. 5, 2026^[5][18]. Its sister utility, Duke Energy Carolinas, which covers Charlotte, the Triad and the western Piedmont, filed a similar deal on July 17^[5][6]. Both trimmed requests that had drawn pushback since November.

Where the Two Sides Actually Agree

Start with what nobody contests. Both utilities filed for new rates on the same day, Nov. 20, 2025, each asking for roughly a 15% jump in revenue over two years^[4][15]. Each wanted a 10.95% return on equity, the profit rate regulators let a utility earn on the portion of its investment funded by shareholders^[4][15].

That number, return on equity, is the fight underneath the fight. A power company can't set its own prices the way a normal business can — regulators set them instead. So regulators also set how much profit the company gets to earn on the money it puts into new plants and wires. Set that rate too low, and investors go elsewhere, or the company has to pay more to borrow, and those extra borrowing costs land on customers anyway, just later^[5]. Set it too high, and customers overpay for years.

By the time Duke Energy Progress reached a settlement in August, that ask had come down to a 9.8% return on equity, built on a retail rate base of about $17.8 billion^[5]. Both companies also agreed not to seek any more base rate increases before Nov. 1, 2028, on the Progress side^[5]. Attorney General Jeff Jackson declined to sign either settlement^[7][23].

Why a Democrat's Number Ran on a Conservative Website

The clearest sign this isn't a normal left-right fight: Carolina Journal, published by the free-market John Locke Foundation, ran a headline built entirely around Jackson's disputed 9.3% figure^[9]. That's a Democratic attorney general's number, amplified by a right-leaning outlet. The shared instinct isn't partisan. It's distrust of a monopoly that customers can't just switch away from, and of the commission overseeing it.

Public radio and left-leaning outlets took a different tack. WUNC's headline said Duke "halves its rate hike request"^[6][13]. Axios wrote that Duke "reaches settlement to lower its proposed rate increase^[13]." Both are accurate. Both also measure the deal against Duke's own opening ask, which is the comparison that makes the company look most generous — not against what customers were already paying.

NC Newsline, part of the left-leaning States Newsroom network, leaned on environmental advocates and a Democratic legislator, giving less space to the settlement's actual signers^[12]. Those signers — the Public Staff, industrial customers, and some clean-energy groups — rarely get top billing anywhere, even though their reasoning is central to why a deal exists at all.

The Agency Whose Name Nobody Uses

That's the Public Staff, a separate state agency whose entire job is representing residential and business customers in cases like this one^[6]. It isn't the attorney general's office, and it isn't Duke. It's the party that actually negotiated the cuts — the lower return on equity, the reduced capital spending, a $10 million shareholder-funded fund for low-income bill assistance^[6][7].

Its case for settling instead of fighting in a hearing room is straightforward: a negotiated deal locks in real, specific cuts now. A fully litigated case could end anywhere, since the commission isn't bound by what either side asks for^[6][11]. Industrial customers and some clean-energy groups signed on too, partly because the deal opens a faster path to new rules on how data centers and other huge power users pay for their own share of the grid^[7][14].

Jackson's office sees it differently. As an elected official, not an agency, he argues a deal signed by the Public Staff, industrial users, and trade groups doesn't necessarily speak for an ordinary household^[7][23]. He says the settlement still gives Duke more than it needs, on top of what he calls an inaccurate public description of what residents will pay^[7][8]. Not signing keeps his office free to contest the deal before the commission, or in court, the way earlier Duke rate orders have been challenged^[17].

What Shows Up on the Bill

Set the percentages aside for a second, because the dollar figures are where this becomes concrete. Under the Progress settlement, a home using 1,000 kilowatt-hours a month would pay about $9.62 more starting in January 2027, then about $5.89 more on top of that starting in January 2028^[3][11]. That's real money, but it's a fraction of what the original filing would have cost: Duke's first ask would have pushed a typical Progress bill from $163.84 to $186.95 a month, a $23.11 jump^[4].

So how do two truthful numbers, 6.8% and 9.3%, describe the same deal? Duke's figure averages the increase across every customer class the utility serves — residential, commercial, and industrial together^[7][8]. The attorney general's figure isolates residential customers only, and adds up the increases across both years rather than reporting them separately^[7][8][10]. Both are real calculations. They just answer different questions, and Duke's version is the one that produces the smaller headline number.

One more date sits underneath all of this. Duke's two Carolina utilities, Progress and Carolinas, are set to merge on Jan. 1, 2027 — the same day any new rates would take effect^[7][15]. That merger has already ccleared its own regulatory hurdles: the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved it Jan. 30, 2026, and the North Carolina and South Carolina utilities commissions signed off by late April^[7][15][24]. It doesn't depend on how this rate case turns out. But it does help explain why Duke wants a clean, settled result on a predictable timetable rather than a drawn-out fight.

What's Still Unsettled

Neither settlement is final. The North Carolina Utilities Commission can approve either one as written, reject it, or rewrite the terms itself — it isn't bound by any party's numbers, including the Public Staff's or Duke's^[6][11]. Coverage points to a commission decision expected sometime this fall, with one public radio report noting a deadline tied to the November filing that falls around Sept. 20, 2026^[6][11][19].

Until the commission rules, the 6.8% and 9.3% figures will keep circulating side by side, each accurate on its own terms. What isn't in dispute is the direction: bills are going up in January 2027, by a smaller amount than Duke first proposed, and by an amount larger than zero.