Rogers' radio interview goes silent

A funny thing happened, says public radio reporter Alex Chadwick, during his interview about the nation's electric grid with Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers: The power went out.

It happened during taping of an hour-long special called "The Switch" that will air on Charlotte's WFAE at 7 p.m. Sunday. The apparently brief outage, Rogers quickly pointed out, wasn't Duke's fault.

The special is part of "Burn: An Energy Journal," hosted by Chadwick. It's about the aging, over-capacity electric grid, which transmits energy from power plants to consumers and most people don't think about until the lights go out.

Chadwick was in a Los Angeles studio, recording Rogers at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., when, Chadwick says in the piece, the connection went "boom."

Rogers set the record straight once power was restored. "I want the record to reflect that the power hit you just took had nothing to do with Duke Energy," he laughed. Duke doesn't serve either city.

Rogers went on to describe the grid as an engineering marvel "because it enables virtually everything else. It's the great enabler."

He'll give up CEO duties at Duke on Sunday, remaining as chairman through the end of the year.

Duke Energy 8th in solar power

The nation's largest electric utility, Duke Energy, comes in eighth among holding companies for solar-energy capacity, the Solar Electric Power Association reports.

Duke's regulated operations have a combined solar capacity of 183 megawatts, most of it bought from other companies. San Francisco-based PG&E Corp., parent of Pacific Gas and Electric, led the list with 1,569 megawatts.

Duke Energy Progress, which serves much of eastern North Carolina, the Asheville area and parts of South Carolina, ranked eighth for the growth of its solar installations last year. It has 94 megawatts of solar capacity while Duke Energy Carolinas, serving Charlotte and the western Carolinas, has 77 megawatts. Duke has 12 megawatts of solar in Florida.

Duke Energy Renewables, an unregulated subsidiary, owns more than 100 megawatts of utility-scale solar, including 15 projects in five states. The power they produce is sold to other utilities.