Duke investing $5 million in new facility

As Duke customers throughout the state have scratched their heads over bill increases in recent months, the energy provider has tried to assure them it is to make investments in the state.

So it is in Greencastle, where residential and commercial customers have not been immune from the rate increases.

However, on Monday came the news that Duke will be investing in a new $5 million transmission operations building on Calbert Way behind the Walmart store.

Transmission is the intermediate portion of the energy delivery process in between generating power and distribution to customers.

“We need infrastructure,” Duke Vice President of Community Relations Marvin Blade told a gathering of community leaders Monday. “Greencastle is a good place to do business and we were able to do that without a lot of red tape.”

The new transmission facility will not replace the current distribution facility Duke operates on Indianapolis Road, nor will it pull any employees from the current facility, with 18 employees set to operate out of the transmission site, in addition to the 25 in the distribution location.

“We are increasing our footprint in Greencastle,” Blade said. “That facility is going to stay there. We are adding another building and we are adding employees.”

“The building across the street from York will remain our distribution building,” Duke Director of Area Operations Anthony Brown said.

In addressing local leaders, Blade — appearing in place of Duke Energy Indiana President Stan Pinegar — did not shy away from the topic of Duke’s recent rate increase

“We have had a base rate case,” Blade said. “We haven’t had one in almost 15 years in Indiana, but we have had one now.”

He emphasized that such an increase is allowing Duke to modernize its grid with technology such as smart meters and sensors on circuits that can either prevent or shorten outages, as well as allowing for the 100,000 new customers added over the last 15 years across the 69 Indiana counties Duke serves.

Then there is also the matter of clean energy, a transition that comes with a cost.

“A big category is as we transition to cleaner energy,” Blade said. “In 2018, 80 percent of our energy in Indiana was coal. While coal has been very good to us — it’s inexpensive — we also know that it takes a toll on our environment. So we will be transitioning to natural gas and other cleaner energies.”

Blade later emphasized how much Duke has shifted away from coal in the last two years, with a current capacity of 60 percent coal, 27 percent gas, nine percent synthetic gas and the remainder from renewable sources such as wind, solar and hydro power.

“You’re going to keep seeing the coal go down and the natural gas go up,” Duke Community Relations Manager Rick Burger said.

“If we go screaming and kicking,” Blade added, “it’s going to have dire consequences when the EPA finally does tell us we have to close it down.”

Still, it hasn’t been without some degree of pain that Duke has transitioned away form coal in a state that has not only relied upon the fossil fuel, but has provided much of it, with Duke having gotten a lot of coal from Southwestern Indiana over the years.

“We are in a coal area, with Dugger and our Wabash Station and Cayuga generating plants,” Burger said. “So it’s hard, but we are transitioning to that.”

For evidence of the transition, one need look no further than Duke retiring and tearing down the Wabash River Station in Vigo County.

“That’s been a workhorse for us,” Burger said. “That was built in the 1950s and it has supplied a lot of kilowatts for us.”

At this point, Duke’s main replacement for coal power in Indiana is natural gas, which can provide power more consistently than can renewable sources.

“We still need X number of megawatts to fuel Indiana but we are transitioning over to natural gas, which is much cleaner,” Blade said. “There are some that would like us to be all renewable. The problem is, the sun doesn’t always shine, the wind doesn’t always blow. We need something that is reliable, so that’s where coal comes in and where natural gas comes in. The renewable load comes and go.”

“That’s been the issue overall with renewable energy is you have to manage that fluctuation,” Brown said.

Managing such fluctuations is another way Duke officials hope to innovate, with a study currently going on about using batteries to store power generated from renewable sources.

Other topics touched upon during the meeting included Duke’s community involvement as well as the way the company has managed during COVID-19, which has included many employees working from home as well as a moratorium on shutoffs for non-payment.

Even with that moratorium now expired, the company is trying to work with customers on payment plans, during which power will still not be cut.

“The last thing we want to do is turn someone’s power off because that doesn’t benefit us and it certainly doesn’t benefit the customer,” Blade said.

Burger and Brown, both of whom live in the West Central Indiana communities they serve, also emphasized their desire to serve customers on a community level.

“If we make a mistake out there, I always ask you as a customer to give us one chance to make it right,” Burger said. “We make mistakes, but we appreciate being partners out there. You are our customers and we’re going to give you the best service we can.”

Brown echoed these sentiments.

“We have been given quite a bit of leverage at this level to help our community partners,” Brown said. “We have the leverage and authority to support making things right for our customers. We are a big company but we are trying to make it more localized.”