Felicia Bethea said she didn’t expect to cry during a public hearing on Duke Energy’s proposed electricity rate increase.
But the 48-year-old single mother of two couldn’t help it. She said it was overwhelming to put into words how monthly power bills between $600 and $800 strain her family.
Bethea said she, her 11-year-old son, and her 13-year-old daughter all have asthma. They run air filters in their Maxton home and use nebulizers to ease their breathing. Their symptoms are worse in the heat, Bethea said, so they have to keep their home cool.
“We depend on constant, reliable, and affordable electricity,” Bethea, a pre-school teacher with Head Start, told representatives of the N.C. Utilities Commission on Tuesday at the Robeson County Courthouse.
Duke Energy is asking the commission’s permission to raise electricity rates for its customers across the state. If commissioners approve the rate increase, Duke Energy Progress customers across central and eastern North Carolina who use 1,000 kWh of electricity a month would pay about $28.06 more each month beginning in January, according to the company’s request. Another average monthly increase of $6.59 would start in 2028.
Duke Energy is also requesting a rate increase for Duke Energy Carolinas, which serves Western North Carolina and northwestern South Carolina. Customers using 1,000 kWh of electricity a month would see an increase of $17.22 per month starting in January, according to the company’s separate request.
As part of its decision process, the utilities commission is hosting public hearings across the state to gather evidence and testimonies about the impact of the proposed increases.
Duke Energy Progress made about $6.9 billion in electricity revenues in 2024, the company said in its rate increase request. But Duke Energy said it needs to increase those revenues by approximately $619.5 million to “reliably meet the growing capacity and energy needs of customers, maintain operational excellence, and enhance the customer experience.”
“Current rates are not providing sufficient revenues for the company to meet its day-to-day operating expenses and to provide its investors with reasonable returns on their up-front capital investments,” Duke Energy wrote in its request.
Duke Energy invested more than $25 million in capital projects in Robeson and Scotland counties in 2025 and allocated $34 million to the distribution grid serving the counties in its 2026 budget, Emily Tucker, a Duke Energy district manager, told attendees who packed a second-floor courtroom on Tuesday.
But Bethea and 12 other residents of Robeson and surrounding counties who testified during the hearing said utility customers shouldn’t have to pay more.
“I ask that you look at me not as an account number,” Bethea said. “Look at me as a resident, as a teacher, and as a mother.”
Only one person–Gene McLaurin, chair of the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina–spoke in favor of the rate increase.
‘A Basic Necessity’
Duke Energy serves about 25,000 Robeson County residents, according to company spokesperson Jeff Brooks.
Linda Leggett, who manages the energy program at the Robeson County Department of Social Services, told the Border Belt Independent in an email that utility bills from Duke Energy and other providers have been “unusually higher than normal” since last fall.
Electricity bills from Duke Energy Progress, Duke Energy Carolinas, and Dominion Energy NC increased by about 22% between 2020 and 2025 across the state, according to a report from the North Carolina Energy Policy Task Force. The average monthly bill from Duke Energy Progress was $155.16 last year, up 33% from 2020, the N.C. Credit Union Division says.
Rising fuel costs, storm recovery efforts, and rate increases are driving higher electricity bills, according to an analysis by the Energy & Policy Institute, a utility consumer advocacy organization.
Robeson County has the highest percentage of residents living below the poverty line in North Carolina at almost 29%, according to the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities. That’s more than double the statewide figure.
“Clients have been and continue to struggle to pay their bills,” Legett said. “Without the assistance from the Energy Program, many clients could not afford to pay their bill.”
The social services department offers two federally funded energy programs to serve low-income residents: the Crisis Intervention Program (CIP) and the Low Income Energy Assistance Program (LIEAP). Legett said case workers have processed over 6,100 program applications this fiscal year, with 3,840 of them approved for assistance.
The Robeson County Church and Community Center in Lumberton also helped 145 households pay their bills since July 2025, according to its director, Brianna Goodwin. She said the nonprofit Southeastern Community Action Partnership assisted another 150 households.
In the last six months, Goodwin said, the majority of requests have come from Duke Energy customers. She said her organization used Duke Energy’s community grant programs as one way to help families.
“The demand is devastating,” Goodwin said. “We have residents living without electricity for six months or more, and even those with chronic medical conditions are unable to keep up with rising costs.”
Nancy Catherine Hunt, a Lumberton resident, told state utility commissioners that electricity “is a basic necessity,” particularly for the high number of Robeson County residents with chronic diseases.
Robeson County is one of the least healthy counties in North Carolina, according to County Health Rankings & Roadmaps. It has one of the highest rates of diabetes in the state, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 9% of county residents have asthma.
Hunt said electricity is critical for people with diabetes who must refrigerate their insulin and for those who use oxygen tanks.
As co-director of the health equity nonprofit Resourceful Connections of North Carolina, she said she sees too many elderly residents struggling to afford their light bills. Some refused to heat their homes during winter storms this year because they feared expensive power bills, she said.
“We know we live in inflationary times, and when we have inflationary times, everybody cuts back,” Hunt said in her testimony. “But it seems like we’re asking the consumer to be the one to do all the cutting back. We’re not asking Duke Energy to tighten the belt.”
Meeting Growing Demands
Duke Energy acknowledged that a rate increase affects its customers, saying in its request that it “takes that impact seriously.”
Tucker, the district manager for Duke Energy, said the company’s investments “are designed to protect reliability while keeping costs as low as possible for our customers” and meeting rising demand.
Duke Energy said in November 2025 that it added about 150,000 customers in North Carolina since 2024. To meet that demand, Duke Energy invested $19 billion in 2025 to increase power generation from its existing facilities and create new ones.
Revenues generated from the requested rate increase would fund $1.7 billion in battery storage projects and $400 million in solar storage projects, Duke Energy said. Other revenues generated from the rate increase would support the license renewal of the company’s Robinson Nuclear Station in South Carolina, according to Duke Energy’s rate increase information page.
In total, the rate increase would help fund $8.3 billion in new investments, Duke Energy said. The largest chunk of those investments, 38%, would go toward 436 distribution-focused projects.
The Rev. Mac Legerton, co-director of the Robeson County Cooperative for Sustainable Development, said Duke Energy wanted to take a “blank check approach” by charging customers for future upgrades. The state’s Power Bill Reduction Act, which the Republican-led General Assembly passed last year, allows utility companies to recover costs for ongoing construction of electric generating facilities and rising fuel costs.
Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, vetoed the bill, stating it “not only makes everyone’s utility bills more expensive, but it also shifts the cost of electricity from large industrial users onto the backs of regular people.” State lawmakers overrode the veto.
Bethea said she is enrolled in Duke Energy’s budget billing plan, but she still has to pull from her family’s food and clothing budget to keep the lights on. She said a Duke Energy staffer on Tuesday helped her better understand the billing plan, but the financial strain is still heavy.
“I just hope, going forward, they stop with the increases when they know they’re making billions,” Bethea said. “They’re not hurting. They’re hurting us.”
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to reflect the correct spelling of Felicia Bethea and to reflect that Gene McLaurin spoke in favor of Duke Energy’s work across the state, not the company’s proposed rate increase.