Dec 20 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Christopher D. Kirkpatrick The Charlotte Observer, N.C.

Duke Energy Corp. is in negotiations with BMW Manufacturing Co. to build a solar energy plant at the car company's Spartanburg facility -- an unusual partnership to develop renewable energy and possibly share costs.

It might be a sign of the future.

Duke wants the solar power outpost to be the first in a network of hundreds controlled by a central computer. It's a goal for Duke, which has been researching buying or partnering with several solar energy startups, Jim Rogers, Duke Energy's chief executive, said Wednesday.

Such a network might be decades off -- if possible at all.

"I would like to be the first company to figure out how to do it," Rogers said after speaking at the Charlotte Chamber's annual luncheon on the region's economic outlook. "We want to co-invest with customers. It's an evolution of our model."

Rogers and others point out that solar power, like wind, is fast becoming affordable as technology improves.

Rogers was one of four panelists at the luncheon and had just returned from three days of meetings in San Francisco with venture capital firms and "six or seven" solar power startups, he said.

Duke would help finance the BMW project and use any excess power to feed the power grid, Rogers said. He wants to repeat the partnership throughout the region with other companies and to find potential hosts for other solar sites, such as building owners. A practical question looming is how much to charge, Rogers said.

Duke and other utilities are facing government requirements to use less coal-fired power and more renewable energy, which is pushing them to find cost-effective ways to set up solar and other renewable energy systems. Duke relies on coal for more than 70 percent of its power generation in the Carolinas and its three Midwest states.

BMW is a logical partner, Rogers said, because it's already focused on using renewable energy sources.

The factory uses methane piped from nearby Palmetto landfill, where the gas is a byproduct of decaying garbage. The company uses it to power generators for 63 percent of its electricity needs. It would use power from a solar plant to increase that percentage, said Bobby Hitt, a BMW spokesman.

The company called Duke about improving the efficiency of its methane gas-fired generators and that led to talk of the solar possibilities. Rogers visited the plant about a month ago to discuss a partnership, Hitt said.

A team of Duke representatives has been meeting with a group from BMW. They hope to have a solar plan hammered out in a couple of months, including deciding on a final solar technology, Hitt said.

"We know how to build cars and they know how to manage electricity."

CEO: 2nd new nuclear plant likely needed

Duke Energy Corp. chief executive Jim Rogers said Wednesday the utility might need a second new nuclear plant to address global warming and meet growing energy demand in the region.

The Charlotte-based utility is already planning a plant in Cherokee County, S.C., on the same site where it scrapped a project in the 1980s that cost the company and ratepayers $600 million.

It submitted its application to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission last week. The new $6 billion plant with twin reactors should go online by 2018, Rogers said. Duke operates three plants.

Speaking at the Charlotte Chamber's annual luncheon about the region's economic outlook, Rogers said a second plant would be needed to go online by the early 2030s because demand continues to increase and federal carbon dioxide regulations aimed at coal-fired plants are likely to be passed by Congress after the next presidential election.

Coal-fired plants are a major source of carbon dioxide, blamed as a cause of global warming.

Nuclear energy advocates point out there are zero smokestack emissions from nuclear plants. But opponents say the radioactive waste is dangerous and that there's no long-term storage solution for the spent fuel. Used fuel rods are currently stored on site at each individual plant.

Duke has set aside land at sites in Oconee County, S.C., and Davie County, N.C., possibly for future nuclear plants.

Rogers told the crowd at uptown's Westin Charlotte that switching from a carbon-based energy system to one focused on conservation, renewable sources -- such as solar and wind power -- and nuclear energy would take decades.

Christopher D. Kirkpatrick