Duke Energy Launches Customer Protection Plus, Projects Billions in Savings for Customers

Duke Energy on Thursday rolled out its Customer Protection Plus framework to guide how the company assesses, plans, and manages data center growth, and it projects that data centers’ progression will result in a billion in savings being passed along to customers.

After President Donald Trump attended the Ratepayer Protection Pledge roundtable at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the afternoon, Duke Energy unveiled its Customer Protection Plus framework.

Duke Energy, which is one of America’s largest energy holding companies with 8.7 million customers, stressed in a release it “is focused on ensuring that growth creates long-term value for all customers.”

“Here’s how: When large customers connect to Duke Energy’s system, they contribute more in revenue than it costs to serve them – creating billions of dollars of customer benefits and helping build a stronger energy future,” the release adds.

The company notes that preserving reliability, powering responsible growth, and producing shared value are the ways in which it is creating customer value as data centers grow.

In a statement, Duke Energy CEO Harry Sideris noted that families around America are wondering what data centers will mean for their bills.

“That’s why today we announced a Customer Protection Plus framework that will guide our approach to managing growth from data centers while creating customer benefits,” Sideris said. “We expect data centers to contribute more revenue than the cost required to serve them, providing billions in customer savings.”

Customer Protection Plus is right in line with Trump’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge, which aims to ensure that the costs of data center energy demand are not passed along to consumers.

During the roundtable at the EPA, Trump laid out the four objectives of the pledge.

“With the Ratpayer Protection Pledge, we’re creating a fair deal for everybody. This is how we’ll grow our economy, lower the cost of living, protect American consumers, and lead the world in AI and high tech all at the same time,” the president said.