HIGH POINT, N.C. – Thomas Built Buses (TBB), a leading manufacturer of school buses in North America, recognized Kerlin Bus Sales & Leasing, Inc. as its 2024 Dealer of the Year. The distinction celebrates Kerlin’s exceptional customer support, industry leadership and ongoing commitment to student transportation.
Based in Silver Lake, Indiana, Kerlin has been a Thomas Built Buses dealer for over 60 years. This marks the dealership’s fourth Dealer of the Year honor, with prior recognition in 1995, 2008 and 2021.
“Kerlin has been an integral part of Thomas Built for decades and has successfully passed the legacy from one generation to the next,” said Daoud Chaaya, vice president of sales, aftermarket and marketing for Thomas Built Buses. “The entire team at Kerlin consistently raises the bar on excellence through their unwavering commitment to the overall TBB value proposition and exceptional customer experience. Congratulations to Kerlin Bus Sales and Leasing on being named the 2024 Dealer of the Year.”
In addition to the Dealer of the Year award, Kerlin was also named to the Thomas Built Buses President’s Club, President’s Club Platinum and Honors Class, which recognizes the top seven dealers for overall performance. The dealership remains a trusted advisor to schools throughout Indiana and beyond, providing expert guidance and service for diesel and electric bus fleets.
Each year, Thomas Built Buses evaluates dealers across its network based on key performance metrics, including customer service, parts availability, training participation and sales performance. The Dealer of the Year award represents the highest level of achievement among all TBB dealers in North America.
2024 Honors Class:
H.A. DeHart & Son, Inc. – Thorofare, New Jersey
Interstate Transportation Equipment, Inc. – Columbia, South Carolina
Kerlin Bus Sales & Leasing, Inc. – Silver Lake, Indiana
Matthews Bus Alliance, Inc. – Orlando, Florida
Mid-South Bus Center, Inc. – Murfreesboro, Tennessee
Midwest Bus Sales, Inc. – Litchfield, Illinois
New England Transit Sales, Inc. – Tyngsboro, Massachusetts
2024 President’s Club Platinum:
Carolina Thomas, LLC – Greensboro, North Carolina
H.A. DeHart & Son, Inc. – Thorofare, New Jersey
Hoekstra Transportation, Inc. – Grand Rapids, Michigan
Interstate Transportation Equipment, Inc. – Columbia, South Carolina
Kerlin Bus Sales & Leasing, Inc. – Silver Lake, Indiana
Matthews Buses, Inc. – Ballston Spa, New York
Matthews Bus Alliance, Inc. – Orlando, Florida
Mid-South Bus Center, Inc. – Murfreesboro, Tennessee
Midwest Bus Sales, Inc. – Litchfield, Illinois
Midwest Bus Sales, Inc. – Shawnee, Kansas
New England Transit Sales, Inc. – Tyngsboro, Massachusetts
Rohrer Bus Sales – Duncannon, Pennsylvania
Sonny Merryman, Inc. – Evington, Virginia
Thomas Bus Sales of Georgia – Forest Park, Georgia
Thomas Bus Texas – Dallas, Texas
2024 President’s Club:
American Bus Sales & Service – Annapolis, Maryland
BusWest – Carson, California
Complete Bus and Specialty Vehicles – Clarksburg, Ohio
Empire Truck Sales, LLC – Richland, Mississippi
Midwest Bus Sales, Inc. – Commerce City, Colorado
Midwest Bus Sales, Inc. – El Reno, Oklahoma
Myers Equipment Corporation – Canfield, Ohio
Schetky Northwest Sales, Inc. – Portland, Oregon
Transportation South, Inc. – Pelham, Alabama
W.C. Cressey & Son, Inc. – Kennebunk, Maine
About Thomas Built Buses:
Founded in 1916, Thomas Built Buses is a leading manufacturer of school buses in North America. Since the first Thomas Built bus rolled off the assembly line, the company has been committed to delivering the smartest and most innovative buses in North America. Learn more at thomasbuiltbuses.com or facebook.com/thomasbuiltbuses.
Thomas Built Buses, Inc., headquartered in High Point, North Carolina, is a subsidiary of Daimler Truck North America LLC, a leading provider of comprehensive products and technologies for the commercial transportation industry. The company designs, engineers, manufactures and markets medium and heavy-duty trucks, school buses, vehicle chassis and their associated technologies and components under the Freightliner, Western Star, Thomas Built Buses, Freightliner Custom Chassis Corp and Detroit brands. Daimler Truck North America is a subsidiary of Daimler Truck, one of the world’s leading commercial vehicle manufacturers.
While attending the STN EXPO East conference in March, School Transportation News connected with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools student transportation professionals in North Carolina. One of these individuals is Monique Jackson, an education veteran who recently wrote a children’s book focused on school bus safety.
Jackson is an area manager for Charlotte-Mecklenburg, the second largest school district in the state. One of 14 area managers, Jackson oversees services for over 5,000 families across 12 different schools. Jackson recalled her time as president of her senior class in high school, where in the yearbook she had said that she would like to be a kindergarten teacher. Little did she know, that would only be the start of her over 25-year career working with students.
Her educational career began at Crispus Attucks Children’s Center, a non-profit childcare center in Roxbury, Massachusetts as a preschool teacher. Jackson transitioned from early childhood care to a program director in Boston that led to her education advocacy work with a group that she described as a “inner city network of childcare provider professionals.”
She later became the president of this group, serving for three years. Her job included working on legislative bills to provide quality and affordable child-care for all the children in the community. She also led the Dorchester Neighborhood Cluster, an organization that utilized funding from the state’s Department of Education for parent advocacy, continuing education for educators, training and workforce development.
Additionally, she was the director of court child-care, where she helped to provide a safe and therapeutic environment for children whose parents were in the courtroom, so they would not be exposed to all the things being discussed in courts.
“I’ve been around for quite some time in terms of the education field,” said Jackson. “I have worked in diverse programs, that are traditional and nontraditional.”
After moving to North Carolina in 2004, Jackson continued her educational journey in after-school care programs and later as a teacher for another five years before entering the world of student transportation.
As a young child, Jackson shared that her mother would walk her to school. However, she rode the school bus for one year during middle school.
“One of the things that we were dealing with at the time, which is really sad, was some issues around racism, because they integrated the schools, and we were basically bused into areas [where] people that look like me did not live,” she recounted.
She described a traumatic incident when someone outside the bus threw a glass soda bottle that struck her black school bus driver in the face.
“I have never forgotten that as a child on the bus and seeing that happen,” she said, adding she believes that everything happens for a reason and there was a silver lining to witnessing the shocking event.
“I think for me, it helped me to realize I still want to work in education and work with children and families. However, it made me realize the importance of cultivating and fostering an environment that is inclusive and inviting for all, and then, of course, focusing on the component of safety as a core value,” she said.
This sentiment is highlighted in Jackson’s first children’s book, “Mommy, Why is Everyone So Mad?” Published in 2020, Jackson shared the book unfolds the feelings surrounding the lack of acceptance that many people face in today’s world and, despite that, how we can all model respect and kindness in our interactions.
“You know, children have a squabble in the sandbox. They go back to being friends again. They forgive each other. They give second chances,” said Jackson. “And sometimes as adults, we lose that softness and that ability to be forgiving and to realize that guess what, we’re human beings. We’re not perfect, we’re going to make mistakes, you know, different things are going to happen. But we have to remember that it’s all about building community and supporting each other.
“We need to breathe,” she continued. “Recognize our humanity. That’s the piece that’s missing. Because when you look at humanity, it doesn’t matter about color, race, politics, religion, socioeconomic background. It matters about people, and what people need to thrive and grow and be successful and happy in our lives.”
Before joining student transportation, Jackson went back to graduate school to obtain a master’s degree in school administration with the goal of becoming a principal. She expressed that she was looking for something different, and a friend recommended that she apply for an open position of transportation manager for the Hopewell area. She was hired and she has stayed in the transportation arena since 2018.
Monique Jackson poses with her book “Gus the Talking Safety Bus,” at the 2025 STN EXPO East conference in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Jackson channeled her love of storytelling, education and safety into her latest children’s book, “Gus the Talking Safety Bus.” The two characters are based on her own twin granddaughters, Ava and Libby, who know all about Gus, a robot used by CMS to train students in kindergarten and first grade about school bus safety.
Jackson said Gus served as her inspiration to use a familiar face to teach children about the importance of safety in the Danger Zone at bus stops and onboard the bus.
She explained that it’s important for students to know what is expected of them from a safety perspective before they get on the school bus. She outlines five safety basics in her book, which she hopes is used as a teaching tool. Her advice is to confirm the expectations, restate them to students, and develop a routine so that they know exactly what to do. This ranges from waiting until the bus has come to a complete stop to how to sit securely in the school bus seats.
Of course, school bus safety doesn’t rely simply on the students but also the school bus drivers. Jackson said she considers her drivers to be “rockstars.”
“Drivers do a lot behind the wheel and then also keep those students safe every day. This is a tough job, and I tell people the same way teachers have a tough job, school bus drivers do too,” she said. “Who knows what it’s like to get behind the wheel of a one-ton machine, and you have precious cargo on board? They don’t realize the things that drivers face and what they run into every day in order to keep those children safe and to get them to school and get them back home every day.”
She said she tries to provide a strong safety foundation by encouraging her drivers to keep in mind that it takes 21 days to form a habit. She encourages them to start the new school year by reinforcing safety rules consistently with the students and modeling them. This sets the tone for the year and can be adjusted to developmental age with each route.
Jackson said she makes sure to let her drivers know that they are fully supported by her, which means following up on behavioral incidents that may require action from school administration. She said she makes sure to follow due process, which includes reporting incidents as referrals to lead drivers and forwarding to school administration. If a resolution isn’t reached, she said she can pull evidence of past referrals as well as videos of the infractions to ensure that the driver is best equipped to handle the school bus and students safely.
As she shared on Episode 254 of the School Transportation Nation podcast, Jackson said she supports a multi-prong approach to school bus and Danger Zone safety, an effort that includes transportation leadership, the drivers, the students and their families and educational material.
Jackson’s passion for educational access and transportation safety is evident to anyone who interacts with her. “I love children and families, and I think that it’s important that all children have access to a quality education, whether it’s before school, after school, of course for our daily school routines as well,” she said.
To add to her ever-growing list of accomplishments, Jackson is also the founder of Kingdom at Work, an online faith platform that she created during the COVID-19 pandemic to provide support for people struggling during a time of isolation. She said of transportation “when there’s a crisis, we transform,” and that the group assisted in transporting educational materials, devices and meals to students.
Jackson said she is excited to continue her journey as an author and has plans for future writing projects. Her books are available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and directly from her website.
A teen girl who was on the receiving end of profanities and a racial slur from a woman while riding a Currituck County Schools bus spoke out on how shocked she was by the incident, reported WAVY 10.
The incident reportedly occurred May 15, when 35-year-old Samantha Spoor boarded the school bus and started yelling at eighth-grade Moyock Middle School student Savannah Bailey.
Bailey told local news reporters that Spoor was told by her son that he had been kicked on by another student on the school bus. When the bus got to Spoor’s stop, she made her way inside the bus. Bailey said she stood up from her seat only to better hear what the woman was saying, but that’s when Spoor directed the profane comments at Bailey.
According to the news report, Bailey was shocked and felt disrespected. Her mother, Christina Bailey, told local news reporters that this incident was uncalled for. Bailey’s father, Anthony Bailey, also stated that he is now unsure if he wants his daughter riding on that school bus route anymore.
The district said only authorized personnel and students are permitted to board school buses, and that Spoor’s behavior was unacceptable. The matter was reported to law enforcement.
Spoor now reportedly faces misdemeanor charges of trespassing, disorderly conduct and communication threats.
A Wilmington teen diagnosed with autism was found safe after a New Hanover County school bus driver helped police locate the boy, reported WRAL News.
According to the article, bus driver Marie Murphy and her monitor Valeria Davis were picking up students April 25 during their normal route when Davis received a notification on her cell phone.
Davis told local news reporters that the WECT app, which provides local news alerts, notified her that a teenager was missing around the Wilmington area.
Davis showed the update to Murphy, and they realized the 14-year-old often rode their school bus. The teen was reported missing at midnight, and the Wilmington Police officers had spent five hours looking for him that morning.
After seeing the boy’s picture, Murphy and Davis were on the lookout as well. Murphy told local news reporters that it made her think of her own kids.
During their last school bus stop, the women reportedly saw the teen standing with a friend on the side of a street. They tried talking to the teen about the incident but all he said was that he wanted to go to school.
Davis and Murphyc contacted their supervisors, Laura Sebert and Stacy Greene, who called 911. Murphy drove the teen to New Hanover High School, where police met them. The reasons for the teen’s disappearance remain unclear.
A Snowden Elementary School student in Beaufort County, North Carolina, is in custody for bringing a handgun on a school bus, reported WITN News.
The incident reportedly occurred April 14, when the district’s school resource officer received a complaint from a school administrator that an elementary school student may have possessed a handgun on a school bus.
According to the news report, a witness said they allegedly saw the student, whose identity was not released at this writing, pull the gun from a bookbag then toss the gun out of the bus window.
The resource officer notified the criminal investigation division of what allegedly occurred and investigators began to look into it.
Officers went to the school and, with the help of the school administrator, interviewed witness and reviewed video footage from the bus cameras. As a result, the gun was recovered by investigators, who then served the student with a petition and secured custody order on April 15.
Breakdowns of the federal Driving Forward Act’s impact on school bus driver training, new student transportation topics being covered by the National Congress on School Transportation writing committee, and doing what’s best for the children.
Monique Jackson, area manager for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools in North Carolina, discusses her passion for education access, her children’s book “Gus, the Talking Safety Bus,” and teaching students school bus safety.
Delvico ‘Vec’ Dunn, the new executive director of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) in Charlotte, North Carolina, started his career as a school bus driver for CMS. He uses that experience to lead by example, especially since his CDL remains current.
Dunn started in pupil transportation in August 1997 as a school bus driver. When he was 18 years old, his parents told him he had to get a job, he shared. “I was one paper from signing up for the military, and a buddy who still drives now said, ‘Hey, they’re hiring bus drivers.’ ‘I said that’s something I would never do.’ But once doing it, I got the passion for it,” he said. “Never did I think it would be a career, though, just something to do. But as time passed and promotions started, I said ‘Hey, I like this.’ It was just about being in the community, being around others, meeting new people, and also seeing things and individuals.”
He transitioned to a lead driver with more office responsibilities and then became an operations technician that oversaw driver and monitor payroll within his area. He left CMS in 2006 to work at neighboring Union County Public Schools, in positions ranging from transportation specialist to operations manager to assistant director.
In 2014, Dunn returned to CMS as a transportation specialist and was promoted within a year to director of operations. In 2020, he became the director of fleet, which encompassed support services.
“Now here we are in 2025, I’ve come full circle to the highest position in our industry, within the CMS sector as the executive director of transportation,” he said. “So basically, starting from the bottom, going through different positions, going to another county and to run one of the largest transportation systems around the country.”
Starting his career as a school bus driver for the same department he’s leading, shapes his daily perspective and priorities. Because he sat in the bus driver’s seat, he said he knows what drivers deal with. And some of the same people that he drove alongside, still drive for CMS.
“To sit in every seat that we have within our department, it shows that I know each level. When an employee says you don’t understand, I fully understand. I drove a bus, I worked in office, I did payroll,” he explained “That’s the advantage I have, which made me more able to adjust to the role of being the executive director. So, the cliche, you don’t know where I come from, I truly do.”
Dunn noted he is following in the footsteps of Adam Johnson, who left CMS earlier this year to become the senior executive director of transportation for Atlanta Public Schools in Georgia.
“Me and Mr. Johnson have been tied to the hip for over 20 years,” Dunn said, adding that he was a supervisor when Dunn was a lead driver. Johnson was also the transportation director when Dunn returned to the district after working at Union County.
“He set high standards,” Dunn added.
He noted that he wants to continue to promote Johnson’s vision but also put his own spin on it. He shared that his leadership style has always been straightforward, and that the administration is only as strong as the front-line employees.
Leveraging Social Media at Transportation’s Level: Share your Story
When Thomas Miner ran the district-wide social media platforms for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, he repeatedly saw that transportation operations were being highlighted on the district’s main accounts. This kickstarted his transfer to work with transportation exclusively. He’s now the the operations specialist in charge of sharing transportation’s stories.
Miner said that while his position existed in transportation before he joined the department two years ago, former transportation director Adam Johnson incorporated more social and digital media elements into his role, which included creating transportation-specific social media accounts. Miner now not only manages department social media but also creates newsletters and distributes internal department messaging.
“We really do try to emphasize as much as we can in the department,” Miner said of using social media for transportation. “We try to share good news from across the department. When you have over 800 drivers, there are stories happening on our buses and throughout our department every day. So, we try to lift up as much of our good news as we can and show the community how we’re serving students and how we are working with schools and principals to make sure that we get students to and from school safely and on time.”
He said having their own social media channels gives transportation an avenue to share their story through photos and videos.
“We get to lift them up and kind of show the community what’s happening in transportation,” he said.
He noted that having a social media dedicated to transportation has changed the dynamic with parents and students in a positive way.
“The district itself has a real focus on communication and customer service, so we prioritize that in all the conventional ways,” he explained. “But we also use our social media tool to directly connect to students and parents. Sometimes they’ll send us messages of compliment. Sometimes they’ll send us a message of something that we need to look into. We really utilized that tool as one more avenue to connect and engage with parents and in the community.
“When we win awards, when we’re doing community service projects, we get to lift that up and show our side and show our story,” he continued, of potential posts. “So often, the news around school districts can be a little negative. We use this as an opportunity to lift up as much good as we can, and to use our platform to share our story.”
“We can’t forget about the drivers, the monitors, our area supervisors, our mechanics, our maintenance supervisors, they do the day-to-day nuts and bolts. If they’re doing their job effectively, it makes, as the executive director or manager, your day run smoothly,” he noted. “I truly believe the top is only strong as the bottom. If the foundation is shaky, the top will be shaky no matter how good or a true leader you have. To have the buy-in, that speaks volumes.”
He added that hiring an internal candidate to fill his role offers stability, but he noted it also comes with challenges as everyone is comfortable in their ways. “I make sure the folks know what my vision is, in parallel to what our district vision is: our goal is to transport students to and from school safely,” he added.
Operational Breakdown
CMS operates about 1,100 pieces of equipment, 838 of which are routed school buses. When Dunn first started driving, he said, CMS had over 1,000 routed buses. He explained that across the nation, student ridership is increasing, but drivers are diminishing.
“Everybody is seeing that shortfall around the industry,” he said, adding that retention is key. That can entail ensuring applicants have other driving job options once they receive their CDL.
He explained CMS was short 27 drivers for the 838 routed bus in mid-March. The biggest hurdle to overcome is driver retirements. “Every year we want to recruit, retain and retrain,” he said, adding that when an industry veteran retires, the district loses that level of 20 to 30 years of experience.
To help combat this, he said CMS offers over $20 per hour starting pay for new drivers. But in addition to finances, there is a positive culture to maintain, not necessarily within the department but on each school bus with student behavior. Dunn said the district prioritizes professional development and training to de-escalate conflicts when they arise. Additionally, transportation focus on self-incentive awards to recognize staff.
“It always can’t be monetary, but sometimes it’s that simple,” he said of recognizing drivers and showing appreciation. “Thank you for the service you’re doing.”
The district will also be holding its annual Bus Rodeo, which provides drivers with an outlet to compete against one another. “We try to keep them engaged and but it’s all about talking in those open lines of communication,” he said. “And also, my door is always open, as well as their area supervisor’s door.”
Delvico “Vec” Dunn was named executive director of transportation earlier this year.
He said CMS also has a bus driver committee, represented by all the 14 service areas the district operates out of five facilities. It’s a chance for drivers to not only bring concerns and questions to administrators needing answers to transportation leaders. This, he said, instills in the culture that managers aren’t simply making a given decision, but do so after getting buy-in from all staff members and making them feel a part of the team.
Technology Through the Ages
Two of the five CMS transportation locations, including the one where this interview was held, were updated within the past year. “That’s a first in my tenure because when I started in 1997, the newest bus garage had just opened up,” Dunn recalled.
The Downs transportation facility at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools was updated in 2025.
In terms of bus technology, Dunn said CMS has GPS, camera systems and tablets. He added that a wish list item, pending available budgetary resources, is RFID card technology. Dunn said the district has an app that can shows the bus location, but it doesn’t alert parents or guardians if their child is on the bus or if/when they got off.
He said another technology solution he’s eyeing is turn-by-turn directions on the tablets. He noted that whether the technology is a distraction has been debated, but he thinks a paper route is more dangerous than following an audible command.
When he started in the industry, Dunn said he and his fellow drivers didn’t even have radios, and the loading doors had to be manually opened and closed. “Now everything is on the steering wheel and buses have air conditioning,” he commented.
In his day behind the wheel, he said air conditioning was driving downhill with the windows open, or “all 32 down,” to catch a good breeze.
Jane Thornton tried and failed to stop the wood pellet plant from being built within earshot of her home in Faison, a tiny farming town in eastern North Carolina where she’s lived for over 60 years.
Now, some eight years later, she and her neighbors have a smaller but critical aim: getting the facility to better control its dust and the nuisance it creates.
Silver-haired and soft-spoken, Thornton is quick to wax philosophical about the forces that have fueled the pellet industry’s rise, largely driven by a decades-old carbon accounting loophole that countries use to allege climate progress. The unintended consequences are concentrated in the U.S. Southeast, which has emerged as a hub for the industry.
“It’s not green,” she said, referring to industry claims of sustainability. “Because when you cut the trees down, you lose the effect of them taking the bad stuff [out of the air]. And then we send them to Europe and use a lot of diesel fuel, which is not good. And they burn it and pollute their air. So how do they think it’s green?”
A host of advocates, scientists, and data backs up Thornton. Producing pellets, shipping them to Europe and Asia, and burning them in power plants all creates carbon pollution greater than that of burning coal. Too often, pellets are made from whole, hardwood trees that were absorbing carbon dioxide while they were alive. Their replacements, often pines, can’t regrow in time to make up for it.
As global climate negotiators debate the fuel’s carbon cycle, today Thornton and others in Faison are focused on dust. Indeed, neighbors of five wood pellet mills in the Southeast, including two operated by Enviva Biomass in North Carolina, list dust as their top concern, according to research conducted by the Southern Environmental Law Center and several other groups.
“That is the number one thing I have heard from almost every community I’ve talked to about pellet mills. It’s incessant dust,” said Heather Hillaker, senior attorney at the law center.
“We’re up against limited regulatory opportunities,” she acknowledged. But the state could force Enviva to tamp down the problem. “This is one area where there is a regulation that applies to an issue that is very prevalent for the community.”
At her home last month, Thornton described watching suppliers roll past on their way to Enviva’s factory.
“I’ve seen more log trucks come by today,” Thornton said. “They clear-cut everything. You get the oaks and the maples and the sycamores and whatever else is out there, and then you come back and plant pines. So, we’re going to have pine forests — or pine plantations.”
She added, “They’re not forests, because a forest is whatever the Lord puts out there.”
Public health impacts
The practice of burning pellets for power isn’t economical without massive government supports, which don’t exist in North Carolina or elsewhere in the U.S. What’s more, the Biden administration’s new rules for the Clean Electricity Tax Credit make it extremely unlikely that wood pellets could qualify.
Still, many countries count burning wood pellets as a positive on their climate ledgers, and the United Kingdom heavily subsidizes the fuel source. While those incentives are set to expire in 2027, the industry is campaigning heavily to get them renewed.
Often overlooked in the climate accounting debate is the experience of the disproportionately low-income communities of color in the Southeast, where pellet mills are invariably located. From the get-go, neighbors have sought to alleviate dust and noise from the mills.
Dr. Ruby Bell, an organizer with the Dogwood Alliance. Credit: Elizabeth Ouzts
Enviva’s first facility in North Carolina, in Ahoskie in Hertford County, began operating in 2011, and regulators required the company to control its dust soon thereafter.
“That pellet mill is a right smack dab in the middle of town,” said Hillaker. “So, it makes sense that they would have had some pretty significant dust issues immediately.”
Success in other communities has been more elusive.
A former professor at the University of Mt. Olive, Dr. Ruby Bell is an organizer with the nonprofit Dogwood Alliance in Faison. She lives far enough from the Sampson County mill that she doesn’t notice many impacts at her own home. Not so when she’s closer to the facility.
“When I first started this position,” Bell said, “I decided to go visit the people who live across the way. I sat outside for 20 minutes… When I left, I was sniffing. My nose was running. I had mucus beginning to form in my throat.”
Tiny air particulates invisible to the human eye are thought to be the most insidious to human health because they can burrow deep into the lungs and bloodstream. But large dust particles can cause the issues Bell described, because they tend to get trapped in the upper respiratory tract.
They can also exacerbate symptoms in people with pre-existing respiratory conditions. More than 100 households in the 300-person survey by Dogwood, Southern Environmental Law Center, and others, reported having asthma. Over half said they simply avoided outdoor activities like grilling and gardening to avoid the dust.
That’s part of why organizers want state regulators to require dust management plans at Enviva’s mills in Northampton, Richmond, and Sampson counties – not just the one in Ahoskie.
‘Better than nothing’
To be sure, the plan wouldn’t address every concern with the Faison facility. Neighbors complain about the noise from the mill’s 24-7 operations. They also blanch at the constant truck traffic, from the delivery of downed trees to the mill to the transport of the finished pellets some 80 miles south to the Port of Wilmington.
“This road out here was built as one of those farm-to-market roads,” Thornton said during the visit at her home, surrounded by farmland. “It wasn’t built for trucks, and they’ve torn it up I don’t know how many times.”
Activists are pressing Enviva to address all of their complaints voluntarily, saying that in addition to controlling its dust, the company should adopt best practices for incoming and outgoing trucks and cease operations between 10 at night and seven in the morning.
Yet even without these extra steps, the dust plan would make a measurable difference, community members believe. The Ahoskie plan, for instance, requires Enviva to apply water to “minimize fugitive dust emissions from any ground surfaces” when dust is observed or conditions are dry, among other measures. It also calls for grass berms, which could mitigate noise.
“The plan is better than nothing,” said Hillaker. “There’s better ability for [the state] to act if the plan itself is violated.”
But convincing North Carolina regulators to mandate the dust plans has been a slog. State rules say a plan is required if regulators can verify two dust complaints in a 12-month period. But that substantiation is far from simple.
“Trained Division of Air Quality inspectors visit the site and determine whether off-site dust is present,” Shawn Taylor, a division spokesperson, said over email. “If so, they attempt to determine the source of the dust by physically inspecting the dust, reviewing weather and wind data, reviewing operating schedules and air quality records of nearby facilities, and using other methods.”
Dating back two years, Bell has submitted grievances on behalf of neighbors in Faison that have yet to be confirmed. And while scientists from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill installed and collected air quality monitors at Thornton’s home and that of others, their research is ongoing and separate from the state’s process for verifying dust complaints.
“Fugitive wood dust usually consists of larger particles that are less likely to be detectable with these monitors, so physical inspection is used,” Taylor said. “Even if monitors detect dust, they cannot determine the source of the dust, so our investigation would need to rely on additional data to make this determination.”
A jar of wood pellets. Credit: Courtesy of Ruby Bell
Still, after years of little to no headway, organizers finally saw some progress last year. Regulators verified two complaints at the Enviva facility at the Port of Wilmington and will now require the company to enact a dust management plan.
“The details of that plan are still being developed by DAQ and Enviva,” Taylor said, “and will be implemented later this year.”
The success at the port has given a jolt of hope to organizers and pellet mill neighbors who feel they aren’t being heard.
“It’s hard to get them moving sometimes,” Bell said. With some justification, many in the community believe “it doesn’t matter what we say,” she said.
In Thornton’s eyes, the battle against wood pellets is all too typical of the way the country approaches environmental regulation.
“We’re not proactive to make sure what we’re doing is right,” she said. “We say ‘oh, this is new, this is good, we’re going to do a whole bunch of it,’ and after we get done, somebody comes along and says I don’t believe we should have done that.”
She added, “that’s true with a lot of things we’ve done in this country. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you ought to.”
When a solar energy developer approached Halifax County, North Carolina, in the early 2010s about renting its former airfield in Roanoke Rapids, community leaders had a condition.
“If they were willing to lease this land for the very first solar project in the area, the county needed to get something back in return,” said Mozine Lowe from her office, which overlooks the 20 megawatt solar farm now atop the old airport. “What they got was this building.”
Of course, it’s more than a building. It’s the headquarters for the Center for Energy Education, the nonprofit Lowe has run since 2016 that works to maximize the benefits of large solar farms in rural America — one community, one school child, and one worker at a time.
Lowe, who grew up about five miles from where she now works, had graduated from Greensboro’s North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University but worked across the country, from California to Washington, D.C.
When she returned to this rural county of less than 50,000 near the Virginia border, formerly a hub of farming and textiles, she said she didn’t see a lot of change.
“The jobs were the same,” she said. “I didn’t see people making the connection between solar energy and what’s happening with the climate and the impact on rural communities, and I just wanted to try and help from that angle.”
The Center conducts educational programs for children of all ages, who come in by the busload from surrounding schools both public and private. It holds a Solar Fest every year to celebrate clean energy with community leaders, drawing hundreds.
Through collaborations with local educational institutions like community colleges, the center has also helped to train a new workforce in jobs that pay roughly twice what workers are earning at the fast-food chains off Interstate 95.
“We have trained more people than most other people around here to become solar installers,” Lowe said. “We want them to be first in line for our jobs.”
And there’s outreach to solar companies themselves in North Carolina as well as Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana, where the Center also has offices. The goal is to help them become better community partners.
The Center for Energy Education staff. Credit: Elizabeth Ouzts
Only a few ‘good players’
Geenex, the Charlotte-based developer who built the solar farm at the airport and over a dozen others in the vicinity, is still involved in the Center, and the company’s chairman also chairs the nonprofit’s board.
But Lowe and other staff at the organization say not every solar developer is committed — at least at first — to working with community leaders in Eastern North Carolina.
“Geenex is a very good partner,” said Reginald Bynum, the Center’s community outreach manager. “They’re a good player. But there are only a few of them. Other companies will say, ‘This is your ordinance? Great. This is all I have to do.’”
Some county ordinances, like that in Halifax, need to be updated, Bynum said. Many still call for a 75-foot buffer between the rows of solar panels and neighboring properties. That figure is “so 2018,” said Bynum. It should be doubled, he said.
Most solar farms are also built on private land — often bits of farmland that can help cotton growers and other farmers guarantee income. But developers usually obtain the leases first, before airing the project in public.
“That’s the backwards process of solar,” Bynum said. “They’re talking to landowners and securing that land, and then they’re coming to commissioners.”
What’s more, simply following ordinances isn’t enough, Bynum says. What’s needed is for solar developers to work with local residents to develop community benefits agreements — documents that memorialize pluses to the area, from minimizing construction impacts to providing jobs.
“It’s a 30-year commitment to the community,” he said, “because your farm’s going to be here 30 years. They’re asking for that, and they deserve that.”
Critically, say Bynum and other advocates, solar developers need to work with community leaders to provide benefits beyond tax revenue — an undeniable good, but one that isn’t “seen” by anyone except county bookkeepers.
And though a recent study from the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association shows that solar farms today take up a fraction of a percent of the state’s farmland, the figure is a full 1% in Halifax County, and on pace to triple in the coming years, according to the Center’s research.
“From rural citizens’ standpoint, that’s a lot,” Bynum said. “You have to really understand what they’re seeing.”
A solar array amid trees and a cotton field in Halifax County, North Carolina. Credit: Elizabeth Ouzts
‘Projects have gotten bigger’
Part of what they’re seeing is the result of a simple fact: solar farms aren’t just growing more abundant in parts of rural America. They’re also much larger.
In North Carolina up until 2016, the average utility-scale solar development was 5.8 megawatts covering 35 acres of land, per the Sustainable Energy Association. After a 2017 state law made larger solar farms easier to build, the average system size increased to 13.6 megawatts and covered 115 acres of land.
“Projects have gotten bigger,” said Carson Harkrader, the CEO of Durham-based Carolina Solar Energy, who appeared on a recent clean energy panel with Bynum. “As they’ve gotten bigger, people freak out a little bit.”
And while many folks’ worries about the visual impact of solar panels can be mollified — with tree buffers, setbacks, and information about the safety of the structures — some are easy targets for opponents.
“The opposition has become much, much, more organized. There are national groups, funded by the oil and gas industry,” Harkrader said. “With this opposition that is more organized and has more resources, it’s much harder.”
In some cases, opponents may fill a vacuum left by solar companies who lined up projects before the pandemic and have only recently begun to start construction.
That’s what happens, said Bynum, “when you miss steps in keeping citizens updated with the project — particularly when you started talking about it five years before. Commissioners change, a lot of tribal knowledge evaporates.”
More success stories?
And sometimes, it only takes one or two community members to force the issue with local politicians. Both neighboring Northampton and Halifax counties have passed moratoriums on new solar farms recently. Halifax acted after just a few people appeared at their meeting, concerned about the loss of trees.
Having talked with county commissioners, staff at the Center are hopeful the moratorium will end quickly as planned, after the county has updated its ordinance. But the “pause” on solar farms is an example of the constant game of whack-a-mole solar developers and their advocates must play.
Lowe says that’s why the Center is so vital.
“What makes us unique is that our work is mainly community engagement,” she said. “Our stance is to be neutral, and to provide factual information. I think we need to tell more success stories.”
This article was originally published by Floodlight.
A small town in North Carolina has taken a bold step, filing the first climate “deception” lawsuit against an electric utility in the United States.
In a civil lawsuit, the Town Council of Carrboro accuses Duke Energy, one of the largest power companies in the United States, of orchestrating a decades-long campaign of denialism and cover up over the dangers of fossil fuel emissions. The lawsuit claims Duke’s actions stalled the transition to clean energy and exacerbated the climate crisis.
Over the past decade, similar suits have been filed by states and communities against large oil companies and — in at least one instance — a gas utility. But Carrboro, N.C., is the first municipality to ever file such a suit against an electric utility.
“We’re a very bold group,” Carrboro Mayor Barbara Foushee told Floodlight. “And we know how urgent this climate crisis is.”
Duke Energy said in a statement, “We are in the process of reviewing the complaint. Duke Energy is committed to its customers and communities and will continue working with policymakers and regulators to deliver reliable and increasingly clean energy while keeping rates as low as possible.”
The suit, filed in Orange County, North Carolina, accuses Duke Energy of intentionally spreading false information about the negative effects of fossil fuels for decades, despite knowing since the late 1960s about planet-warming properties of carbon dioxide emissions. It claims the power company funded trade organizations and climate skeptic scientists who created doubts about the greenhouse effect and obstructed policy and public action on climate change.
“Duke misled the public concerning the causes and consequences of climate change and thereby materially slowed the transition away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy. Duke’s deception campaign served to protect its fossil fuel-based business model.” the lawsuit reads.
Between 2005 and 2023, the company reported reducing its CO2 emissions from electricity generation by 44%. But in 2023, at least 45% of the electricity Duke produced was still generated by burning coal or methane gas.
“(Duke) was one of the ringleaders behind deceiving the public and municipalities and governments about the causes and consequences of manmade climate change,” said Raleigh attorney Matthew Quinn, who is representing the town.
Carrboro is a town of about 20,000 with an annual budget of $81 million, Foushee said. Quinn, the attorney, estimates the town will incur some $60 million in costs in adapting to climate change impacts, including repairs to roads, upgrades to stormwater systems and increased heating and cooling costs.
At a press conference Wednesday, Quinn explained that expert analysts had arrived at that number based on the amount and cost of climate adaptation that Carrboro would have undertaken had it not been for Duke’s alleged deception.
“There’s a major gulf between where we should be at and where we are right now,” Quinn said at the press conference.
“Really, what this case is about is that Carrboro has been a victim of the climate deception campaign by Duke Energy, (and) as a result of Duke’s conduct, Carrboro has suffered a lot of damages and injustice,” Quinn said in an interview.
Added Danny Nowell, Carrboro Mayor pro tem: “We have paid for it. We have paid for excess road repairs. We have faced the effects of stormwater, and we will continue to pay for other expenses as we uncover them. It’s time for Carrboro to be repaid.”
Quinn’s fees are being paid by NC Warn, a climate nonprofit, Foushee said.
“People that run local governments and others and people that run corporations, they all better get heavily serious about the climate crisis,” said Jim Warren, executive director of NC Warn. “It’s already harming so many across this state.”
Bob Jarvis, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University, called such lawsuits “cute.”
“And I use that term very, you know, intentionally. These lawsuits are cute in the sense that they’re trying to shame companies … into doing better,” said Jarvis, adding that they are rarely successful. “Companies have duties to their shareholders to maximize profits. And so what these lawsuits are really saying is that companies should be punished for maximizing profit.”
“It’s interesting with this as a case directly against a utility,” said Korey Silverman-Roati, a senior fellow at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. “It’s a shift in perspective from companies just producing fossil fuels to those burning it.”
Although this is the first climate deception lawsuit ever filed against an electric utility, it is not the first time that electric utilities have found themselves in legal trouble for the climate warming pollution their power plants spew as they burn fossil fuels to generate electricity.
In 2004, electric companies faced federal litigation brought by eight U.S. states, New York City and several land trusts seeking to cap the companies’ CO2 emissions. The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled against the plaintiffs.
Floodlight is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests stalling climate action.
Charlotte, North Carolina, may soon get access to a new tool to deploy in its push toward 100% clean power: data.
The Tar Heel state’s largest city aims to power all government operations with carbon-free electricity by the end of the decade, including the city-owned Charlotte-Douglas International Airport, one of the busiest in the world.
But the hub is a big question mark for the city’s climate target. Officials don’t actually know how much energy it uses — or how much renewable energy they need to offset it — because the utility bills for the five-terminal airport are paid by dozens of individual customers, from Cinnabon to Jamba Juice to airline club lounges.
Now, after a decade of urging by Charlotte and others, Duke Energy has a proposal to change that: an eight-page plan for improved data access that has sign-off from the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association; Public Staff, the state-sanctioned customer advocate; and Dominion Energy, which serves the northeast corner of the state.
Filed last month with regulators for approval, Duke’s proposed rules could have wide application, said Ethan Blumenthal, regulatory counsel for the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association.
“For municipalities applying for federal grants, large customers pursuing energy efficiency, and homeowners and solar companies that are trying to right-size solar installations,” Blumenthal said, “this access to data is essential.”
Avoiding a ‘laborious process’
The Charlotte airport is a prime example of one hurdle facing local communities with climate goals. Today, getting total energy usage data for government-owned buildings with multiple meters means reaching out to individual tenants to get permission to access their accounts.
“It would be a very laborious process to do that at the airport and anywhere else we have tenants,” said Aaron Tauber, Charlotte’s sustainability analyst.
The problem extends to private building owners who aim to reduce their carbon footprints or improve efficiency but don’t have insight into their renters’ energy consumption. Honeywell, for instance, is a partner in the city’s “Power Down the Crown” initiative, whereby building managers look to reduce energy use by optimizing efficiency.
“They don’t own all of the data,” Tauber said. “They have tenants in their properties. So, they don’t have visibility to the entire building’s energy use.”
The new rule will allow a large user, from Honeywell to Charlotte, to access aggregated data for a large building with multiple tenants by request to Duke, so long as at least 15 individual accounts are involved, and none consumes more than 15% of the building’s energy use.
“Being a larger city, we do have a lot of large buildings with multiple tenants,” said Tauber. “I’m just really excited for these building owners to really — for the first time — gain an understanding of how their buildings are using energy.”
That understanding, he said, is critical for commercial properties to access a new law that allows them to borrow public money for energy efficiency upgrades and pay it back on their property tax bills.
“Being able to unlock a financing mechanism based on this data will really go a long way for the city to be able to meet our strategic energy action goal of being a low-carbon community,” said Tauber.
Not just for big buildings
The data access rule also applies to a census block, zip code, or other area with at least 15 accounts, which will help local governments meet community-wide climate goals.
“You can use the aggregated data to make good decisions for program design, and where you might want to target,” said Ann Livingston, senior executive and director of programs with the Southeast Sustainability Directors Network. “You can assess: is this particular block or neighborhood really using a lot more energy per house per square foot than others?”
Durham County, for instance, together with neighboring Granville and Orange counties, has a $1.5 million federal grant to help low-income homeowners cut their energy use through weatherization and other upgrades.
“We want to focus in areas where there’s a higher energy use or higher energy burden,” said Tobin Freid, the county’s sustainability manager. “We’d like information at a more granular level than just the county.”
If the new Duke rule is approved, it will also help county officials better tailor the program to individual households and assess its impacts. The proposal would ease the approval process for allowing third-party access to data and ensure that at least two years of prior energy use is included.
“For every home that we work on, we would need historic data to see: what was your energy use before?” Freid said.
Both the aggregated data and third-party access provisions will also be critical for federal programs like Solar for All, aimed at deploying rooftop solar on low-income households.
“Often, those federal funding opportunities require you to assess and report on energy impact,” said Livingston. “Solar for All will be a very clear example of this, where you need to report energy savings for individual participants.”
Growing interest in local impact
Apart from the sustainability goals, government officials also have a commitment to manage public dollars efficiently, Livingston noted. That’s especially pertinent for large energy users like Durham County, who may pay a higher “demand charge” for a single 30-minute spike in energy use. Large customers with net-metered solar power also pay more during times of peak demand.
The proposed rules will help solve these challenges by allowing third parties access to machine-readable, easily analyzed data for customers of all sizes. The format would essentially meet national “Green Button” standards, one familiar to the many companies around the country dedicated to managing building energy performance.
The Green Button initiative, a project of the U.S. Department of Energy that originated in Canada, has been around for over a decade – about as long as the Sustainable Energy Association has been advocating for improved customer data access, along with counties like Durham.
But the issue seems to have gained new steam in recent months, as local governments look to take advantage of new federal grants and laws aimed at reducing climate pollution.
What’s more, Blumenthal said, Duke has pledged to implement the rules within 18 months of their approval and help expedite any data requests in the interim.
“There is a commitment to doing everything they can, essentially, to provide data for federal funding purposes up until [the proposal] is fully implemented,” Blumenthal said. “A commitment to try to bridge the gap.”
Asked what prompted the agreement with Blumenthal’s group and others after all this time, Duke spokesperson Logan Stewart said over email:
“A lot has changed in the last decade from a technology, cybersecurity, and customer engagement perspective that made this stipulation possible. Duke Energy is always looking for ways to collaborate with stakeholders to achieve outcomes that benefit customers.”
Mark Fleming has a prediction for those terrified about the impact of a second Trump administration on the clean energy transition: “It’s going to work out better than folks think.”
Fleming is head of Conservatives for Clean Energy, a Raleigh-based nonprofit that brings together lobbyists, consultants, and politicians on the right who support clean energy. The group formed a decade ago, not long before Trump’s first term began, and is now active in six Southeast states. On Tuesday, together with the Chambers for Innovation and Clean Energy, it held its biennial luncheon in downtown Raleigh.
Coming just two weeks after an election most advocates see as a major setback for federal clean energy policy, the Raleigh event was not unlike past affairs, with congenial vibes, a half dozen awards to politicians and businesses, and presentation from leading Republican consultants assessing the political salience of clean energy.
“It was an election about the economy and immigration,” explained Paul Shumaker, one such pollster and a fixture at these gatherings. “Clean energy is never going to be the issue.”
Trump and his hostile, mostly fact-free rants on the campaign trail about wind energy and the climate crisis got little mention during the formal presentations. Side conversations showed conservatives seemed relatively unconcerned about the future president’s tirades and threats.
“Governing is different than campaigning,” Fleming said.
He and others believe much of Trump’s rhetoric was tossed as red meat to his base of supporters and won’t get meaningful follow-through. On technologies such as offshore wind — which the incoming president frequently lambasts — perhaps the administration and even the man himself can be convinced of its economic benefits, attendees suggested.
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican who supports offshore wind in the commonwealth, “will be at the top of the list of conservative policy makers in terms of encouraging the Trump administration to look at the positives on offshore wind,” Fleming said. “It makes long term economic sense, but there’s going to be some education there.”
Nine new projects announced in North Carolina the year after the measure’s passage, from lithium processing to vehicle-charging equipment plants, will spur tens of thousands of jobs and add $10 billion to the state’s GDP, the clean economy group E2 found.
Such data should be fodder for members of Congress like Sen. Thom Tillis, North Carolina’s senior U.S. senator and a Republican, to fight to keep most of the Inflation Reduction Act’s provisions.
“He has been such a thoughtful leader on energy issues,” Fleming said of Tillis. “He’s going to be a key decision maker in the U.S. Senate on these clean energy issues moving forward.”
‘We won’t agree on everything’
Jason Saine, a Lincoln County Republican who served more than a dozen years in the North Carolina House and now works as a lobbyist, was among the luncheon’s awardees. He says Trump’s rhetoric is just part of politics.
“Good science and good facts will rule the day, but in the meantime, we’ll suffer through a lot of rhetoric,” he said.
Like some of his conservative colleagues who focus on federal policy, Fleming hopes the closely divided Congress will have new reason to enact reforms to the permitting process that will speed approval of clean energy as well as fossil fuel projects.
And though he’s confident that much of the Inflation Reduction Act will survive, Fleming believes Congress will trim it — a “scalpel rather than a sledgehammer” approach.
Saine agrees. “It can always be recreated in a different format and voted on again,” he said. “What’s dead today is never dead tomorrow.”
One item in the climate law that’s ripe for repeal is the $7,500 tax credit for electric vehicles, Fleming said. That incentive is spurring plenty of economic development in rural areas in the form of EV and battery factories, but it’s perceived as benefiting only urban folk.
“The administration will want wins,” Fleming insisted. “We won’t agree on everything. But I think we’ll have opportunities to work together to move the economy forward and move the clean energy cause forward in D.C.”
No matter what, most of the luncheon attendees remained focused on incremental reforms in North Carolina — where the power dynamics are largely unchanged after Nov. 5. Trump won the state, but Democrat Josh Stein trounced a scandal-plagued Republican to win the governor’s race. The GOP continues to control a heavily gerrymandered legislature and is just one vote shy of a veto-proof majority in the House.
Still, as “Trump II” approaches, Fleming acknowledged Conservatives for Clean Energy has an important role to play.
“It’s going to be better than folks think,” he repeated. “But the onus will be on all of us to make it happen. Now, groups like ours are more needed than ever. That thought leadership on these issues will be on the right. It’s not going to be from our friends on the left.”
When regulators allowed Duke Energy to lower bill credits to homes with rooftop solar, critics warned the solar industry would suffer a major loss.
A year after the new rates took effect, available data show those detractors had a point, with new household solar connections in Duke territory on pace to drop about 40% compared to 2023.
Yet the reason for the dip is multifaceted — ranging from steep interest rates to the loss of a popular rebate program — and seems to have had little impact on longtime installers in the state.
Indeed, many say they’re optimistic about the future of home solar, partly because of new Duke incentives for home batteries that are already having an impact. Their push now is to extend and expand them.
“We believe this is a strong way forward to support our utility grid and the ability of homeowners to produce and use their own energy,” said Brandon Pendry, communications specialist at Southern Energy Management, an installer based in Raleigh.
A complex truce on net metering
Most homes that go solar stay connected to the utility grid, drawing electricity at night and providing surplus power on sunny days. The question is what bargain these solar owners strike with their utility for this give and take, known as net metering.
The arrangement for Duke’s North Carolina customers was long straightforward: they bought the electrons they needed at the retail rate and sold excess ones back at the same rate. Like all customers, they faced a minimum bill charge for the company’s fixed grid costs, such as poles and wires.
But this approach has downsides for a for-profit utility like Duke, whose business model depends on buying or producing electrons at one cost and selling them for a higher one. Like many utilities around the country, Duke had sought for years to impose more costs on solar customers and credit them less for their contributions to the grid.
A major campaign contributor in the state legislature with an army of lobbyists, Duke helped write and pass two laws, one in 2017 and another in 2021, requiring an end to retail net metering by 2027.
Seeking to avoid the bruising battles over net metering seen in California and other states, some North Carolina solar installers and clean energy advocacy nonprofits sought – and achieved – compromise with Duke instead.
Under the deal, new solar customers can choose a “time of use” rate, in which they’re rewarded more for electrons they add to the grid, and charged more for those they subtract, during times of heavy demand. Alternatively, until the start of 2027, customers can select a “bridge rate,” in which they get a one-to-one exchange for electrons taken from and given to the grid.
While sophisticated customers might conceivably squeeze out substantial benefits of solar with the time-of-use rates, installers pushed the bridge rate for its simplicity and certainty, which they deem nearly as good as the old net metering rate.
“All in all, I think residential solar installers are feeling excited about where the industry is going right now,” said Matt Abele, the executive director of the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association.
Industry cross currents
But the dip in sales since the complex truce took effect is undeniable. Abele’s group tracked a huge spike in solar projects registered with state regulators in September 2023, just before the new net metering rates were implemented, followed by a steep drop off that bottomed out last December.
Different metrics supplied by Duke — solar connections rather than registrations — show new solar rooftop customers on pace to number about 5,300 in 2024, compared to about 9,100 in 2023 and 10,200 in 2022. The number also falls well short of Duke’s own predictions for new residential solar customers for this year of 11,400.
Yet the installers contacted for this article were largely unfazed. Reached before the devastation of Hurricane Helene, Clary Franko, chief operating officer at Asheville’s Sugar Hollow Solar, predicted sales this year would be lower than last, but not by a huge amount. “Hooray for the bridge rate!” she said.
Executives at Yes Solar Solutions, based in Cary, agreed. “In residential, the net metering bridge rate has kind of kept things intact,” said Stew Miller, president of the company. “I think everybody's doing as well as to be expected.”
And Pendry at Southern Energy Management said his company had more potential customers this year than the year before.
“Looking back at our previous 12-month period, we saw high interest from homeowners who wanted to lock into the legacy net metering program,” he said. “Moving into this last 12-month period, we have seen slightly more interest in solar overall.”
The disconnect between these companies’ optimism and the decline in sales may reflect that fewer installers are doing business now in North Carolina, with 40 companies registering new systems in the state in August versus 57 last September, according to the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association.
Indeed, established rooftop solar companies say part of their business model now includes cleaning up after so-called bad actors, who installed panels incorrectly or incompletely during the heady days of the early 2020’s.
“There were so many systems that were put in in our area that we’re having to redo,” said Dave Hollister, president of Asheville-based Sundance Solar Systems. “It's been a significant problem in our community.”
Still, a spokesperson for EnergySage, a marketplace that helps connect vetted solar companies with customers, says the company hasn't seen any decrease in the number of active vetted installers working in the state.
It’s also true that the most successful companies are used to the “solar coaster,” the ebb and flow of sales based on policies as well as market conditions. Installations rose sharply immediately after the pandemic, when Duke was still offering rebates, the old net metering rates were in effect, and interest rates were low. That all changed.
“As usual, we have all these cross currents in the industry,” said Hollister. “I can say that probably the biggest chilling effect was the interest rate hikes.”
‘An incredible program’
There’s another key factor fueling hope among solar installers: Power Pair, a battery incentive program implemented this spring that was the final puzzle piece in the net metering compromise with Duke.
For adding a home battery, Duke customers can get a rebate on both it and their solar array. Combined with a 30% federal tax credit, the cash back could cut the cost of an average $40,500 system down to less than $20,000.
Power Pair participants subscribed to the simpler bridge rate allow Duke to remotely manage their battery and earn an extra $37 a month on average. Enrollees in the more complicated time-of-use rate plan, on the other hand, don’t get monthly incentives but do retain full control of their systems.
Installers say the incentive is a huge hit, with the great majority of their customers now choosing the bridge rate and buying a battery along with solar panels.
“It’s gotten us to a place where we always thought we would be,” said Miller of Yes Solar, “in that many, if not most, solar systems now include some element of storage.”
The battery inducement drove interest in solar overall, said Bryce Bruncati, director of residential sales with 8M Solar. A whopping 95% of its customers are now installing batteries with their solar systems, as opposed to about a quarter before. “The Power Pair program has been a big success,” he said.
The uptick in batteries occurred statewide, according to EnergySage. Sixty-nine percent of North Carolina homeowners who went solar with EnergySage in the third quarter of 2024 included battery storage, compared to just 8% in the same period in 2023.
Still, Power Pair is just a pilot program, set to end when each Duke utility reaches a cap of 30,000 kilowatts. Duke reports about 2,000 participants as of early September. According to the company’s website, the utility serving the Asheville area and the eastern part of the state is 36% full, and the one serving central North Carolina is 21% full.
For the solar industry and its advocates, then, the priorities looking forward are several. Extend Power Pair, and count on market forces to make batteries and rooftop solar economically attractive even when the bridge rate expires in 2027. At the same time, expand the incentives to include small businesses and nonprofits, currently under new net metering rates.
“Power Pair has been an incredible program,” said Sugar Hollow’s Franko. Extending it to the commercial sector would make a huge difference, she said, “opening the door for new types of industries that probably aren't thinking about this because sustainability isn't their goal, but reliability would be.”
Correction: Duke Energy's Power Pair pilot program was 36% full for the utility serving the Asheville area and 21% full for the utility serving central North Carolina. An earlier version of this story included incorrect numbers.
North Carolina regulators on Friday accepted Duke Energy’s controversial plan for curbing carbon pollution, a blueprint that ramps up renewable energy and ratchets down coal power but also includes 9 gigawatts of new plants that burn natural gas.
The biennial plan is mandated under a 2021 state law, which requires Duke to zero out its climate-warming emissions by midcentury and cut them 70% by the end of the decade.
The timing of the order from the North Carolina Utilities Commission, two months ahead of schedule, caught many advocates by surprise. But its content did not: it hewed closely to a settlement deal Duke reached this summer with a trade group for the renewable energy industry; Walmart; and Public Staff, the state-sanctioned ratepayer advocate.
But critics were dismayed by regulators’ abdication of the 2030 deadline. The ruling said Duke no longer needed a plan to make the reductions by decade’s end, instead telling it to “pursue ‘all reasonable steps’ to achieve the [70%] target by the earliest possible date.”
“Major step back on climate,” Maggie Shober, research director at the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy,” wrote on X, the website formerly known as Twitter, adding, “for those that say it couldn’t be done, Duke had a 67% reduction by 2030 in its 2020 [long-range plan.] The utility industry generally, and Duke in particular, has had opportunity after opportunity to do better. They chose not to, and here we are.”
“Duke’s plan isn’t even compliant with the latest EPA regulations related to greenhouse gas pollution,” David Rogers, deputy director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign, said in a statement.
Concerns about the Biden-Harris rules, along with doubt that the natural gas plants could be converted to burn carbon-free hydrogen, appeared not to persuade regulators.
“The Commission acknowledges that there are uncertainties and risks associated with new natural gas-fired generation resources, but this is true of all resources,” the panel wrote.
On the contrary, regulators believe Duke can make use of gas plants after the state’s 2050 zero-carbon deadline, even if clean hydrogen doesn’t pan out.
“Accordingly,” the panel said, “the Commission determines that a 35-year anticipated useful life of new natural gas-fired generation and its assumed capital costs are reasonable for planning purposes.”
The greenlight for the gas infrastructure is not absolute, commissioners emphasized in their order, since Duke still must obtain a separate permit for the facilities. But advocates still bemoaned the anticipated impact on customers.
“This order leaves the door open for Duke Energy to stall on carbon compliance in order to develop additional resources, like natural gas, that largely benefit their shareholders over ratepayers,” Matt Abele, the executive director of the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association, said via text message.
‘Positive step’ for offshore wind
Still, Abele and other advocates acknowledged the plan’s upsides, including its increase in renewables like solar and batteries. The 2022 plan limited those resources to about 1 gigawatt per year; this year’s version increases the short-term annual addition to about 1.7 gigawatts.
Regulators’ decision to bless 2.4 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2034 and call for Duke to complete an “Acquisition Request for Information” by next summer also drew measured praise.
“This order is an overall positive step for offshore wind,” Karly Lohan, North Carolina program manager for the Southeastern Wind Coalition, said in an email, adding, “we still need to see Duke move with urgency and administer the [request for information] as soon as possible.”
With regulators required to approve a new carbon-reduction plan for Duke every two years, advocates are already looking ahead to next year, when the process begins anew.
“Proceedings in 2025 present another chance to get North Carolina back on track to achieving the carbon reduction goals as directed by state law,” Will Scott, Environmental Defense Fund’s director of Southeast climate and clean energy, said in a statement.
“By accelerating offshore wind and solar, the Commission could still set a course for meaningful emissions reductions from the power sector that are fueling the effects of climate change, including dangerous and expensive storms like Hurricane Helene.”
And like Scott, David Neal, senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, isn’t giving up on the state’s 2030 carbon-reduction deadline, the commission’s latest order notwithstanding.
“We’ll continue to push for the clean energy future that North Carolinians deserve and that state law and federal carbon pollution limits mandate,” he said in a statement.
Seventeen days after Hurricane Helene devastated Western North Carolina, tearing down power lines, destroying water mains, and disabling cell phone towers, the signs of relief were hard to miss.
Trucks formed a caravan along Interstate 40, filled with camouflaged soldiers, large square tanks of water, and essentials from pet food to diapers. In towns, roadside signs — official versions emblazoned with nonprofit relief logos and wooden makeshift ones scrawled with paint — advertised free food and water.
And then there were the generators.
The noisy machines powered the trailers where Asheville residents sought showers, weeks after the city’s water system failed. They fueled the food trucks delivering hot meals to the thousands without working stoves. They filtered water for communities to drink and flush toilets.
Western North Carolina is far from unique. In the wake of disaster, generators are a staple of relief efforts around the globe. But across the region, a New Orleans-based nonprofit is working to displace as many of these fossil fuel burners as they can, swapping in batteries charged with solar panels instead.
It’s the largest response effort the Footprint Project has ever deployed in its short life, and organizers hope the impact will extend far into the future.
“If we can get this sustainable tech in fast, then when the real rebuild happens, there’s a whole new conversation that wouldn’t have happened if we were just doing the same thing that we did every time,” said Will Heegaard, operations director for the organization.
“Responders use what they know works, and our job is to get them stuff that works better than single-use fossil fuels do,” he said. “And then, they can start asking for that. It trickles up to a systems change.”
Nick Boyd, left, and Blake Davis unload solar panels in Asheville, North Carolina. Credit: Elizabeth Ouzts
A ‘no-brainer’ solution to the problem of gas generators
The rationale for diesel and gas generators is simple: they’re widely available. They’re relatively easy to operate. Assuming fuel is available, they can run 24-7, keeping people warm, fed, and connected to their loved ones even when the electric grid is down. Indubitably, they save lives.
But they’re not without downsides. The burning of fossil fuels causes not just more just more carbon that exacerbates the climate crisis, but smog and soot-forming air pollutants that can trigger asthma attacks and other respiratory problems.
In Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, generators were so prevalent after the electric grid failed that harmful air pollution in San Juan soared above the safe legal limit. The risk is especially acute for sensitive populations who turn to generators for powering vital equipment like oxygenators.
There are also practical challenges. Generators aren’t cheap, retailing at big box stores for more than $1,000. Once initial fuel supplies run out — as happened in parts of Western North Carolina in the immediate aftermath of Helene — it can be difficult and costly to find more. And the machines are noisy, potentially harming health and creating more stress for aid workers and the people they serve.
Heegaard witnessed these challenges firsthand in Guinea in 2016 when he was responding to an Ebola outbreak. A paramedic, his job was to train locals to collect blood samples and store them in generator-powered refrigerators that would be motorcycled to the city of Conakry for testing. He had a grant to give cash reimbursements to the lab techs for the fuel.
“This is so hard already, and the idea of doing a cash reimbursement in a super poor rural country for gas generators seems really hard,” Heegaard recalled thinking. “I had heard of solar refrigerators. I asked the local logistician in Conakry, ‘Are these things even possible?’”
The next day, the logistician said they were. They could be installed within a month. “It was just a no-brainer,” said Heegaard. “The only reason we hadn’t done it is the grant wasn’t written that way.”
A solar powered water filter station in Asheville. Credit: Elizabeth Ouzts
‘Game changing for a response’
Two years later, the Footprint Project was born of that experience. With just seven full-time staff, the group cycles in workers in the wake of disaster, partnering up with local solar companies, nonprofits and others, to gather supplies and distribute as many as they can.
They deploy solar-powered charging stations, water filtration systems, and other so-called climate tech to communities who need it most — starting with those without power, water, or a generator at all, and extending to those looking to offset their fossil fuel combustion.
The group has now built nearly 50 such solar-powered microgrids in the region, from Lake Junaluska to Linville Falls, more than it has ever supplied in the wake of disaster. The recipients range from volunteer fire stations to trailer parks to an art collective in West Asheville.
Mike Talyad, a photographer who last year launched the collective to support artists of color, teamed up with the Grassroots Aid Partnership, a national nonprofit, to fill in relief gaps in the wake of Helene. “The whole city was trying to figure it out,” he said.
Solar panels from Footprint that initially powered a water filter have now largely displaced the generators for the team’s food trucks, which last week were providing 1,000 meals a day. “When we did the switchover,” Talyad said, “it was a time when gas was still questionable.”
Last week, the team at Footprint also provided six solar panels, a Tesla battery, and charging station to displace a noisy generator at a retirement community in South Asheville.
The device was powering a system that sucked water from a pond, filtered it, and rendered it potable. Picking up their jugs of drinking water, a steady flow of residents oohed and aahed as the solar panels were installed, and sighed in relief when the din of the generator abated.
“Most responders are not playing with solar microgrids because they’re better for the environment,” said Heegaard. “They’re playing with it because if they can turn their generator off for 12 hours a day, that means literally half the fuel savings. Some of them are spending tens of thousands of dollars a month on diesel or gas. That is game changing for a response.”
‘Showing up for their neighbors’
Footprint’s robust relief effort and the variety of its beneficiaries is owed in part to the scale of Helene’s destruction, with more than 1 million in North Carolina alone who initially lost power.
Nick Boyd, left and Will Heegaard, right, of the footprint project, along with volunteer Blake Davis, in Asheville. Credit: Elizabeth Ouzts
“It’s really hard to put into words what’s happening out there right now,” said Matt Abele, the executive director of the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association, who visited in the early days after the storm. “It is just the most heartbreaking thing I’ve ever seen — whole mobile home parks that are just completely gone.”
But the breadth of the response is also owed to Footprint’s approach to aid, which is rooted in connections to grassroots groups, government organizations, and the local solar industry. All have partnered together for the relief effort.
“We’ve been incredibly overwhelmed by the positive response that we’ve seen from the clean energy community,” Abele said, “both from an equipment donation standpoint and a financial resources standpoint.”
Some four hours east of the devastation in Western North Carolina, Greentech Renewables Raleigh has been soliciting and storing solar panels and other goods. It’s also raising money for products that are harder to get for free — like PV wire and batteries. Then it trucks the supplies west.
“We’ve got bodies, we’ve got trucks, we’ve got relationships,” said Shasten Jolley, the manager at the company, which warehouses and sells supplies to a variety of installers. “So, we try to utilize all those things to help out.”
The cargo is delivered to Mars Hill, a tiny college town about 20 miles north of Asheville that was virtually untouched by Helene. Through a local regional government organization, Frank Johnson, the owner of a robotics company, volunteered his 110,000-square-foot facility for storage.
Johnson is just one example of how people in the region have leapt to help each other, said Abele, who’s based in Raleigh.
“You can tell when you’re out there,” he said, “that so many people in the community are coping by showing up for their neighbors.”
‘Available for the next response’
To be sure, Footprint’s operations aren’t seamless at every turn. For instance, most of the donated solar panels designated for the South Asheville retirement community didn’t work, a fact the installers learned once they’d made the 40-minute drive in the morning and tried to connect them to the system. They returned later that afternoon with functioning units, but then faced the challenge of what to do with the broken ones.
“This is solar aid waste,” Heegaard said. “The last site we did yesterday had the same problem. Now we have to figure out how to recycle them.”
It’s also not uncommon for the microgrids to stop working, Heegaard said, because of understandable operator errors, like running them all night to provide heat.
But above all, the problem for Footprint is scale. A tiny organization among behemoth relief groups, they simply don’t have the bandwidth for a larger response. When Milton followed immediately on the heels of Helene, Heegaard’s group made the difficult choice to hunker down in North Carolina.
With climate-fueled weather disasters poised to increase, the organization hopes to entice the biggest, most well-resourced players in disaster relief to start regularly using solar microgrids in their efforts.
As power is slowly restored across the region, with just over 5,000 remaining without electricity, there’s also the question of what comes next.
While there’s a parallel conversation underway among advocates and policymakers about making microgrids and distributed solar a more permanent feature of the grid, Footprint also hopes to inspire some of that change from the ground up. Maybe the volunteer fire station decides to put solar panels on its roof when it rebuilds, for instance.
“We can change the conversation around resilience and recovery by directly pointing to something that worked when the lights were out and debris was in the street,” Heegaard said.
As for the actual Footprint equipment, the dream is to create “lending libraries” in places like Asheville, to be cycled in and out of community events and disaster relief.
“The solar trailer or the microgrid or the water maker that went to the Burnsville elementary school right after the storm – that can be recycled and used to power the music stage or the movie in the park,” Heegaard said. “Then that equipment is here, it’s being utilized, and it’s available for the next response, whether it’s in Knoxville or Atlanta or South Carolina.”
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