Duke Energy Announces $103 Billion Capital Plan for Power Expansion Over Next Five Years

Duke Energy plans to spend $103 billion for growth over five years, marking an industry record for the Charlotte-based utility. The investment will focus on adding about 20 gigawatts of new power generation over a decade, enough to service about 15 million homes. That capacity compares to the nearly 17 million residents in the combined Carolinas.

The CEO expects the $103 billion spending number to grow. "Ours will probably go up as we move into the future because the growth is not slowing down," the CEO told Fortune in a recent interview. He cited the AI surge, stating, "We’re only beginning."

The new power generation will include gas-fired power plants, solar energy, battery storage, grid upgrades, and efficiency gains. The utility contracted with GE Vernova for about 20 new gas-fired turbines and is investing heavily in solar and batteries. With a nuclear fleet, the company is extending the lifelines of its nuclear plants and upgrading them to produce more power.

The utility ranks No. 144 in the Fortune 500 and leads the regulated utility industry in power generation and grid scale. The 125-year-old company gets its name from James Buchanan “Buck” Duke, a power and tobacco industrialist whose family gave its name to Duke University.

The CEO, who finished his first year as CEO after an entire career at the utility and predecessor companies, said, "It’s a good time to be in the utility business. I say that we’re the cool kids now. " The utility counts Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Meta as major data center customers.

These hyperscalers require the utility to build infrastructure quickly, with the CEO noting that being vertically integrated gives an advantage. "The hyperscalers tell us that," he said. " The utility has 200,000 people moving into its service territory each year.

Florida and the Carolinas are three of the fastest-growing states in the country for population, while Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana are showing more modest population growth. All of these areas are attracting more data center projects. Of the $103 billion capital spending plan, about 60% is dedicated to building new power generation, while the rest goes to grid expansions and upgrades, including poles and wires.

$1.4 trillion through 2030, according to the nonprofit PowerLines. The utility represents the single-biggest slice of that pie. Utilities requested a record high $31 billion in rate hikes in 2025, more than twice the near record from 2024.

The utility's rate hikes are below industry peers, but data centers account for only a fraction of the price increases. The CEO counters that data center deals require hyperscalers to pay for their own infrastructure, with rate hikes needed for population growth and grid upgrades. North Carolina Gov.

Josh Stein complained earlier in April that the utility is asking for a 15% rate hike and an extra $800 million in fuel costs. Stein argued that the utility is shifting the cost of electricity from large industrial users onto regular people. The feud involves a law approved in North Carolina last year that eliminated certain state mandates for carbon emission reductions by utilities and allowed more flexibility on rate hikes.

The utility is also hardening infrastructure to combat increasing severe weather events from climate change. The service area has taken hard hits from Hurricane Helene in 2024 to Winter Storm Fern in January. "We take a very data-driven approach.

We do know that storms are getting more frequent and stronger, and we’re seeing impacts in places that we usually didn’t see impacts," the CEO said, citing repeated weather-related outage problems in the western Carolinas. The plans involve keeping some coal-fired plants on life support beyond the previous goal of phasing out coal by 2035.

"We have always said that we’ll make sure that we keep things reliable and affordable first and foremost, and then increasingly clean," the CEO said.

As new load has grown, it has moved some of those coal dates out. The utility was the first utility to require demand-side management from hyperscalers, curtailing data centers during peak demand on the hottest and coldest days. 99% of the time, we have plenty of power, but it’s those really cold mornings or those really hot afternoons," the CEO said.

Contracts allow 50 hours per year of such curtailments to speed up grid connections. The CEO said spending costs will rise higher if utilities are reactive instead of proactive in supporting growth and hardening the grid. In the utility’s footprint, issues have arisen in Florida and on the coast of the Carolinas, with recent rethinking needed after damage in western North Carolina.

"Where are the issues? That’s where we’ve been hardening things," he said. " After decades of limited or flat electricity growth nationwide, the industry now faces record growth alongside major grid upgrades and repairs.

$1.4 trillion in nationwide utility capital spending, the bulk is in the South—from Texas to Maryland—with $572 billion planned, followed by the Midwest with $272 billion. The CEO noted that communication is key amid questions about building infrastructure, with some opposition going beyond NIMBYism. "I call it BANANAs now.

Build absolutely nothing anywhere [near anything]," he said.