Rogers told the Charlotte Business Journal’s Energy Inc. Summit that legislators were turning their backs on emerging technology, green-energy developers and the jobs they have created.
“They are not focused on the future. They are focused on the past,” Rogers said in unscripted comments on the measure.
He later added: “It’s just something we need to get behind and figure out how to educate those who claim to be leading us into the 21st century.”
The legislation now before the state Senate would freeze a state standard that requires utilities to get increasing amounts of their energy from the sun, wind and other renewable sources. The 2007 law creating the standard sets an ultimate green goal of 12.5 percent by 2021.
A Senate committee, on a disputed voice vote Wednesday, approved a bill that would instead keep the target at the current 6 percent and no higher. The vote sent the measure to the full Senate.
The bill’s sponsors, including House Majority Leader Mike Hager, a former Duke engineer, say the standard unfairly rewards green-energy developers and denies consumers the benefits of the cheapest sources of electricity.
Renewable energy advocates say the bill would squelch a law that has helped make North Carolina the nation’s fourth-largest solar state, and scare away investors in other green-energy sectors.
The North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association says more than $2.6 billion has been invested in renewable energy in the state, and thousands of jobs created, since the standard became law.
Duke has officially taken no position on the bill, although it contains one provision – lowering the size of green-energy projects eligible for standard energy-purchase contracts – that Duke supports.
Duke has met the standard’s rising targets and says it expects to be able to comply with its ultimate goal in 2021.
Rogers would not comment, after his talk, on whether Duke should take a public stand on the bill. He left Duke in December 2013.
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