Duke Energy Progress in Spat Over Cost of Electricity Produced by Burning Poultry Waste

NewsObserver.com

North Carolina’s struggle to convert animal waste into energy has blown up into a legal spat between Duke Energy Progress and a New York private equity firm that plans to burn turkey droppings as an energy fuel supplied by more than a million birds in Duplin County.

The operators of the Coastal Carolina Clean Power facility in Kenansville warn if the N.C. Utilities Commission doesn’t resolve the 2-year-long dispute, CCCP’s power plant will shut down at the end of the year, wiping out 24 jobs and quashing a solution to North Carolina’s agricultural waste conundrum.

The Utilities Commission on Monday is scheduled to hear from lawyers representing Charlotte-based Duke, the nation’s largest electric utility company, and CCCP, which is owned by Riverstone Holdings, a global firm in New York with a $27 billion investment portfolio.

The dispute between the two financial giants leaves Duplin County turkey farmers waiting on whether they will have a year-round dump site for mounds of turkey waste. Currently the waste is used as an agricultural fertilizer but it has to be stored much of the year until area farms are ready to take it.

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