North Carolina would cap carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and accelerate the closure of coal-fired power plants under a draft plan released Friday by Gov. Roy Cooper's administration.

Writ large, the plan calls for a series of initiatives to whack away at the emissions contributing to climate change. It's goal: "By 2030, reduce electric power sector greenhouse gas emissions between 60% and 70% below 2005 levels and work towards zero emissions by 2050."

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To get there, the proposal relies on policy shifts that require General Assembly approval, as well as reforms that could overhaul the way North Carolina regulates and delivers electricity to homes and businesses across the state.

Among other things, the draft plan suggests that the legislature:

  • Enact a new law either capping carbon dioxide emissions in the electric power sector or requiring a percentage reduction.
    • Require a new analysis when companies want to build new fossil fuel plants that considers carbon impacts, both to the environment and to public health, changing the math regulators use to determine whether new plants should be approved.
      • Set a date by which "uneconomical" coal power plants must close.

        Just which coal plants count as uneconomical would be studied, but the plan references previous research that said most existing coal plants in the country are more expensive to operate than building wind and solar facilities.

        Duke Energy has seven coal plants in the state now, all planned for retirement by 2038, a company spokeswoman said. Duke, by far the state's largest electric utility, has largely relied on natural gas to phase out coal.

        The plan runs 137 pages, and it's open to public comment online until September 9. The Department of Environmental Quality rolled it out Friday, and DEQ Secretary Michael Regan called it "a shared vision for the energy future we need in North Carolina."

        Duke Energy's North Carolina president, Stephen De May, said the company was reviewing the plan and looked forward to "continued dialogue with diverse stakeholders to achieve the critical energy policy objectives for the state of North Carolina.”

        The Southern Environmental Law Center, which along with Duke Energy was one of 164 groups that participated in workshops on the plan, applauded Cooper in a statement Friday, saying he was "taking action to reduce carbon pollution in the face of the harm suffered by North Carolina residents and businesses from increasingly intense storms and flooding events."

        "Now is the time for bold action to address ongoing climate change, which affects all North Carolinians but disproportionately harms the most vulnerable," SELC senior attorney Gudrun Thompson said in a statement.

        The plan builds on a previous executive order from the governor, which called for a 40 percent reduction in greenhouse gases from all economic sectors by 2025. Duke Energy has set its own goal, saying it wants to hit that 40 percent mark compared to 2005 by 2030. The new draft plan says the state's energy sector has already reduced carbon dioxide emissions by 34 percent since 2005.

        It gives the credit for that to market forces, along with two state laws: The Clean Smokestacks Act of 2003 and the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Standards the legislature passed in 2007.

        Cooper wants to re-invigorate that REPS law, which requires utilities to produce a percentage of their power from renewable sources. The plan suggests setting higher targets for 2030 and 2050 and boosting energy efficiency requirements as well. It also calls for new state building codes to increase energy efficiency and incentivize both renewable energy and vehicle electrification.

        The plan has a number of proposals for boosting the use of electric vehicles, something Cooper also keyed on with his executive order last year.

        The plan discusses joining a multi-state cap-and-trade program, but says modeling predicts this "may not result in significant emissions reductions beyond what is already expected to occur."

        The proposal also seeks changes that would boost the potential for offshore wind generation along North Carolina's coast and calls for a study into what sort of infrastructure North Carolina has, and needs, to support construction of turbines or other equipment. Cooper also called for that study in his budget proposal earlier this year.

        The plan also backs changes to the state's electric grid, laying out a number of priorities, including a smarter grid that works better with battery storage and programmable thermostats, and virtual net metering to better enable community solar farms. It says the state's solar industry is bumping up against a transmission problem: most of the panels are in Eastern North Carolina, but most of the energy demand is to the west, and it's difficult to transport with the current system.

        Duke Energy has been trying for several years to get the N.C. Utilities Commission, which must approve construction and the rate increases that pay for it, to sign off on billions in grid modifications, and it has broken a more ambitious plan into smaller pieces to move forward.

        The draft plan also contemplates study for another Duke Energy priority: An overhaul of the state's entire regulatory structure.

        The company has been pushing the legislature this year to change the state's regulatory approach, but concerns that Cooper would veto this measure have the bill hung up in the House. The administration's plan would set up a study on the multi-year rate plans Duke Energy wants and a slew of other regulatory overhauls, including partial deregulation.

        Another idea the plan suggests for study: "Revenue decoupling" to break "the link between the amount of energy a utility delivers to customers and the revenues it collects." This would "help to remove the utility’s current incentive to sell more energy in order to increase revenue," the draft plan states.

        The Administration also wants to study ways to save poorer customers from rate hikes, potentially by eliminating, for low-income customers, the monthly fixed charge ratepayers see on their bills.