Last month’s winter storms pushed the energy grid to its limit. Duke Energy set a record for hourly peak on Tuesday, Jan. 27, dispatching 37,308 megawatts across its Carolina service territories.
Now those winter power bills are pushing utility customers to the brink of disconnection. Charlotte resident Shakia Davis said she fell behind on her Duke Energy bill while paying down her Piedmont Natural Gas bill.
“I'm a survivor,” Davis said. “So I learned, okay, brush your teeth in cold water, wash your hands in cold water. So I learned how to get around certain stuff, but not enough for my bills to be okay.”
Still, it wasn’t enough. Duke sent her a disconnect notice for March 11, and she’s not alone.
The number of January disconnection notices has grown year over year, outpacing the growth of Duke Energy Carolinas’ customer base. This January, DEC sent nearly 10% more notices than the year prior. Even factoring in seasonal variations — notices tend to spike in the winter or late summer — a greater percentage of Duke Energy Carolinas’ customers is receiving disconnection notices than at any time in the last three and a half years.
This is likely linked to the expiration of pandemic-era customer protections. In March 2020, state regulators suspended utility service disconnections due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
State regulators suspended disconnections again in February 2021, and Duke voluntarily extended the moratorium for vulnerable customers through March 2022. Duke Energy automatically enrolled customers in repayment plans and gradually resumed disconnections in the months that followed.
Carol Hardison is the CEO of Crisis Assistance Ministry, which helps people get on top of high utility bills. She says a wave of disconnections could be coming.
“The [bills] from this January will just be huge, and that'll show up this month's bill. But it will be late in March. It'll be a disconnect in April,” Hardison said.
A total of 220,270 accounts received disconnect notices from Duke Energy Carolinas last month, along with 134,179 from Duke Energy Progress.
