Bill introduced to kill NC renewable-energy standard

A measure to eliminate North Carolina's renewable-energy standard, the first in the Southeast when it was adopted in 2007, was introduced in the N.C. House Wednesday.

House majority whip Mike Hager, a Rutherford County Republican and former Duke Energy engineer, was among the bill's primary sponsors.

Hager had targeted the law for "picking winners and losers" in the energy marketplace. He's said the law unfairly forces consumers to subsidize renewable energy, which costs more to produce than traditional energy forms.

At the end of 2012, Duke Energy Carolinas, which serves Charlotte, was charging residential customers 22 cents a month to recover its costs of complying with the law. Progress Energy Carolinas, serving the state's eastern half and Asheville, charged 41 cents a month.

The N.C. Sustainable Energy Association, which represents the renewables industry, calls the portfolio standard "the first real opportunity for clean energy companies to compete with the utilities and offer consumers a choice."

The association says the standard has had too powerful an economic impact to destroy. Its 2012 jobs census found the equivalent of 15,200 employees working for 1,100 energy-related companies that pull in $3.7 billion a year.