North Carolina Governor Josh Stein’s Energy Policy Task Force released its interim report last month, with a set of nine recommendations for ensuring that North Carolinians have affordable, reliable, and clean energy supplies as demand for energy skyrockets in the state.
The recommendations focus largely on managing the impact of data centers, including proposals for rate structures to ensure they bear the costs they create, load flexibility where they would reduce consumption during peak demand periods, requirements that they report their energy and water usage, and a revaluation of current tax incentives for data centers.
Other recommendations focus on modernizing the electrical grid and helping residential customers become more energy efficient.
The recommendations come as North Carolina faces steep increases in demand and costs. While electricity demand grew just 7% from 2005 to 2025, Duke Energy is projecting total demand to increase over its two Carolina systems anywhere from 16% to 60% through 2040. All the while, residential electricity bills have climbed nearly 30% from 2017 to 2024, with prices set to increase even higher thanks to a proposed Duke Energy rate hike.
The bipartisan task force, which Stein created in August 2025, includes 30 energy experts and policymakers who met in full four times over the last six months and held numerous subcommittee meetings to identify the pressing issues and possible solutions.
“I’m grateful to the task force for its thoughtful work to inform policies that protect affordability, reliability, and sustainability,” said Stein. “And I look forward to our state’s building on this progress in the months ahead”.
To read the interim report, visit North Carolina Energy Policy Task Force.
