Governor Stein’s Energy Policy Task Force Releases Interim Report

Governor Stein’s Energy Policy Task Force released its interim report yesterday, putting forth a set of recommendations to ensure that North Carolinians have affordable, reliable, and clean energy supplies amid rapidly growing demand for energy.

“As demand for energy grows, families and businesses need to be able to count on dependable, sustainable, and affordable power,” said Governor Josh Stein. “I’m grateful to the task force for its thoughtful work to inform policies that protect affordability, reliability, and sustainability, and I look forward to our state’s building on this progress in the months ahead.”

In August 2025, Governor Stein created the North Carolina Energy Policy Task Force through Executive Order 23. Co-chaired by NC Department of Environmental Quality Secretary Reid Wilson and Representative Kyle Hall, the task force includes 30 energy experts and policy makers. Initial work has focused on identifying policy and technology solutions to address the state’s growing energy needs, fueled by data centers, advanced manufacturing operations, and population growth.

The interim report includes initial findings and recommendations the task force members developed during their first six months of work. The task force met in full in September and December 2025 and January and February 2026 and held numerous subcommittee meetings for discussions including the opportunities and risks associated with electricity load growth, along with policy approaches to achieve clean, plentiful, and affordable energy supplies.

“Energy demand is rising rapidly in North Carolina,” said Department of Environmental Quality Secretary Reid Wilson. “I appreciate the task force members’ hard work to identify potential solutions to ensure that future energy supplies are affordable, reliable, and clean, and I look forward to working with the task force to refine these interim recommendations.”  

“Since September, we have worked tirelessly to find an innovative solution to the problem of North Carolina’s rapid population growth and energy consumption. Through regular meetings, we have explored the avenues taken by other states, and heard from experts on what they would do again and what they would avoid,” said Representative Kyle Hall. “While we have reached a consensus, we did not do so unanimously. There are many opinions on a topic such as this, and such an outcome shouldn’t come as a surprise. There are many possibilities, and we will continue to do right by the people of North Carolina and their families as we continue our work. This report is just the beginning.”

North Carolina, like much of the country, is expecting significant load growth in the coming years. According to Duke Energy’s 2025 load forecast, total demand across its two Carolina systems is projected to increase 16% to nearly 60% through 2040. From 2005 to 2025, electricity demand in all of North Carolina rose just 7%. From 2017 to 2024, the average residential electricity bill has risen by nearly 30%. Almost two-thirds of the increases in North Carolinians’ electrical bills has been due to rising fuel costs, mostly driven by rising and volatile natural gas prices. The major public utilities serving North Carolina are projecting significant further increases in bills by 2040 even beyond the proposed rate increases for many North Carolina residential customers of 16-18% over just the next two years.  

In their February 2026 meetings, task force members made the following recommendations, which are included in the interim report.

1. “Develop options for large-load tariffs.”  

• Large-load tariffs are specialized standard set of terms and rules for large-load customers like data centers intended to ensure the majority of the costs associated with a new large-load costumer are paid for by that customer.  

2. “Develop options for 'bring your own capacity' and alternative capacity procurement methods."

• “Bring your own capacity” can allow large-load customers to directly select and acquire the energy resources they need. 

3. “Develop options to encourage load flexibility.”

• Load flexibility involves having large customers dial down the amount of power they use during peak demand periods or system emergencies. 

4. “Explore reforms to large-load and generation interconnection processes.”

• Interconnection involves how electricity generators and users connect to the grid. 

5. “Assess the dollar and strategic value of existing sales and use tax exemptions for data centers.”

• North Carolina has sales tax exemptions for data center electricity use and equipment, but the cost of these exemptions is currently unknown. 

6. “Explore evaluation process for advanced transmission technologies and grid-enhancing technologies.”

• Grid-enhancing technologies can increase the capacity and reliability of the electric grid by upgrading existing infrastructure. 

7. “Explore residential and small business incentives for energy efficiency improvements.”

• Increasing energy efficiency can help residential ratepayers lower their electricity costs while helping make the entire grid more reliable by reducing demand. 

8. “Explore development of a third-party load-forecasting process.”

• Electricity demand forecasts for North Carolina from the major public utilities have a historically wide range of possibilities, in large part due to uncertainties from data centers. 

9. “Explore energy and water usage reporting for data centers.”

• Data centers are major users of water and energy, but there is no reliable publicly available information for data center energy and water use for North Carolina. 

Over the next year, the task force will dive deeper into the recommendations with a goal of delivering more refined and detailed recommendations for policymakers to consider in the next report due in February 2027.

To read the interim report and see other materials from the task force, visit North Carolina Energy Policy Task Force | NC Governor.