Duke Energy Starts Paying South Carolina Businesses $120/kW to Put Their Batteries on Call
- Demand Charge Reduction Energy Storage Regulatory
Marin Holt
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- 6 minutes read
- Connectivity credit: $120/kW one-time
- Renewable charging adder: $30/kW
- Monthly capacity credit: $3.50/kW
- Curtailment credit: $0.10/kWh
- Dispatch events: 30 to 36 per year, 4 hours max
Duke Energy turns on PowerShare Storage in South Carolina this month. The Public Service Commission of South Carolina approved the nonresidential demand response program on May 27, 2026. Businesses, industrial sites and government facilities that enroll a qualifying battery earn a one-time connectivity credit of $120/kW. Customers who charge that battery from renewable generation collect another $30/kW. Duke then pays a monthly capacity credit of $3.50/kW on enrolled capacity, less a verified loss factor. Curtailed energy earns $0.10/kWh on top of that.
What Customers Sign Up For
Duke gains the right to call an enrolled battery 30 to 36 times a year. No single event runs longer than 4 hours. Customers may decline 4 events annually without losing credit eligibility, and up to 2 of those refusals fall in winter months.
That structure shows what Duke is buying. Thirty-six four-hour calls make a capacity product, not a frequency-response product. The winter carve-out matters most. Duke Energy Carolinas peaks on cold winter mornings, so the utility protected the exact hours it needs while still letting customers walk away from them.
PowerShare Storage is one of the ways we are innovating for customers today while at the same time preparing for the grid of tomorrow.
Tim Pearson, South Carolina president, Duke Energy
Why It Matters
The $120/kW headline number is not new. Duke filed the same connectivity credit for North Carolina businesses in December 2025. That filing named 500 customers and 26 MW over five years. South Carolina now gets the same design with a fuller credit stack on top. Duke is standardizing one demand response product across the Carolinas instead of negotiating each state alone.
For a customer, the arithmetic depends on what the battery already does. A commercial battery bought to shave demand charges sits idle most of the year. A monthly $3.50/kW for capacity it was not otherwise selling is close to free money. A battery sized for backup is a harder call. A 4-hour discharge on a summer afternoon leaves it depleted heading into the evening.
Duke published no MW target and no program cap for South Carolina. That omission is the number worth asking about. Without a cap, the utility cannot say how much customer-owned storage it expects to dispatch. Without a target, the commission has no yardstick for its next review. The North Carolina filing at least named 26 MW.
Critical Perspective
Duke pays $3.50/kW a month for the right to call an enrolled battery up to 36 times a year. The credit stack rewards enrollment more than performance, because the $120/kW connectivity payment lands once the battery simply connects. Southern California Edison hit that problem in its Demand Response Auction Mechanism, where enrolled megawatts repeatedly outran the megawatts delivered at the event hour. If South Carolina businesses bank the connectivity credit and then decline the 4 events that matter most, what does Duke actually own?
Sources
- Duke Energy: New program helps South Carolina nonresidential customers lower costs (May 27, 2026)
- Microgrid Media: Duke Energy Launches Battery Program for South Carolina Businesses (May 28, 2026)
- PR Newswire: New Duke Energy program helps South Carolina nonresidential customers (May 27, 2026)
- Greenville Business Magazine: New Duke Energy program helps South Carolina nonresidential customers (May 27, 2026)
