Duke Energy strikes deal with tech giants to shield North Carolina customers from data center costs

Duke Energy has reached a settlement designed to keep North Carolina households from paying for the AI boom’s electricity bill. The agreement, struck on October 7, 2026, brings together the North Carolina Public Staff, tech heavyweights including Amazon, Google and Microsoft, and the US Department of Defense. The goal is to make sure the companies driving new demand cover the costs of serving it, rather than the family down the street running a dishwasher. Whether it holds depends on one more signature: the North Carolina Utilities Commission still has to approve it. What the settlement actually requires The deal targets what utilities call “large-load” customers. Under the terms, that means any customer needing 50 MW or more at an 80% load factor. Those customers would be placed on a High Load Factor rate schedule. The core protections fall into a few buckets: Upfront payments. New large-load customers would make nonrefundable payments upfront for facilities built specifically to serve them. This applies to contracts signed after June 1, 2026. Minimum monthly bills. Qualifying new large-load customers would pay monthly minimums set at 75% of their projected demand. If a data cente...