The Carolinas set a new record during last week’s winter weather: the highest-ever energy demand. For the second year in a row, Duke Energy set a record for hourly peak on Tuesday, Jan. 27. That’s the most energy Duke customers in the Carolinas have ever consumed in a single hour. It’s likely to be the highest peak of 2026.
The utility dispatched 37,308 megawatt hours, less than 1% more than last January’s record.
Energy demand has grown considerably over the last decade. Peak demand averaged around 33,600 MWh from 2016 to 2020.
“Growth in customer demand since that time surpasses the full capacity of Oconee Nuclear Station in South Carolina, the largest power plant on Duke Energy’s two-state system,” said Bill Norton, a Duke Energy spokesperson, in a written statement.
The utility asked customers to turn down their thermostats and avoid using energy-hungry appliances to ease strain on the grid. Norton said in a written statement that “while energy conservation saves customers money,” Duke plans to add 19,600 megawatts of new capacity in the next decade to meet growing demand
Duke’s latest resource plan shows that most of that new energy generation will come from natural gas.
Batteries performed well during the winter mornings
The winter weather highlighted areas for improvement in Duke’s clean energy portfolio. On Monday — the day Duke asked customers to conserve energy — the utility’s solar fleet produced only 105 megawatts of power. That's out of 5,120 megawatts connected to the grid.
The electricity that solar panels produce matches up well with summer energy demand. However, the panels perform poorly on dark, cloudy winter mornings. Inversely, wind turbines are most productive during winter mornings, when demand is highest. The utility omitted any definitive plans for onshore or offshore wind energy in its latest resource plan proposal, citing problems such as federal energy policy, siting and supply chain constraints — despite wind turbines remaining “a highly complementary resource” to solar energy, according to the utility.
Battery systems also allow the utility to offset this energy mismatch, storing excess energy from solar panels when the sun is out and dispatching it during peak-demand periods. Duke said in a statement to WFAE that its existing 250-megawatt battery fleet provided relief during last weekend’s winter storm and high demand. Batteries are “energy agnostic,” as the company has previously acknowledged, and will store any excess energy on the grid at a given time, including solar, natural gas, coal and nuclear.
Duke plans to bring 6,550 megawatts of battery storage online across its Carolinas service territories by 2035, according to its latest filings before state regulators.
