State regulators slashed a rate request by Aqua North Carolina, the state's biggest private water utility with 88,000 water and sewer customers, including more than 400 subdivisions in Wake County.

The N.C. Utilities Commission approved a 5.3 percent increase for Aqua, representing an additional $2.3 million a year in sales for the company. The rate increase approved is a fraction of the 19 percent the company had originally asked for.

The rate increase will be the company's second in three years, and the request in January elicited hundreds of objections from customers who said they couldn't afford higher utility bills in the middle of a severe economic downturn.

The Public Staff, the state's consumer protection agency in utility rate cases, conducted a months-long audit of Aqua's books and concluded that the company was entitled to a puny rate increase of 1.2 percent.

The utilities commission decision, issue late Monday, essentially splits the difference between Aqua's position and the Public Staff's. Aqua had scaled back its 19 percent request to about 10 percent last month when company officials realized they had aroused intense passions from customers and skepticism from regulators.

Opponents are already jockeying for legal advantage in next week's public hearings on the proposed merger between Duke Energy and Progress Energy.

The two power companies today asked the N.C. Utilities Commission to quash some objections raised by critics of the merger as irrelevant. If the companies prevail, the environmental groups would be barred from arguing some of their points.

The hearings are set to begin Tuesday, with Progress CEO Bill Johnson and Duke CEO Jim Rogers expected to testify on the first day. The hearings could last four days to give time to hear witnesses and listen to experts and go through cross-examinations.

More pre-trial filings are due later this week to the utilities commission as the two utilities seek to convince the utilities commission to rule critics' objections out of bounds.

North Carolina critics of the proposed merger between Duke Energy and Progress Energy are making last-minute filings with the N.C. Utilities Commission to express their displeasure at the planned creation of the nation's largest electric utility. The deadline to file objections was today.

The groups warn that the planned merger would be a bad deal for customers and for the environment. The groups are asking the utilities commission not to approve the merger without imposing additional conditions to promote green energy.

A coalition of groups including the Sierra Club and Environmental Defense Fund say the merger would create a giant power company that will dominate the state and crowd out competition from clean energy producers.

The N.C. Sustainable Energy Association, a Raleigh trade group that represents solar and other renewable developers, wants the commission to require the power companies to pay $75 million into a public benefit fund to pay for home weatherization and other programs. The utilities have committed to contributing $15 million, one-fifth that amount.

A state court has said that North Carolina's power plants can burn whole trees harvested for fuel, and count the lumber toward their mandate to use green energy resources.

The N.C. Court of Appeals' ruling resolves a dispute between Duke Energy and two organizations: the Environmental Defense Fund and the N.C. Sustainable Energy Association.

The two nonprofit groups had contended that letting power companies harvest trees for fuel, rather than using wood scraps and logging debris, would open the way to clear-cutting forests and other environmentally irresponsible practices.

But the appellate court upheld an October ruling by the N.C. Utilities Commission that said the state's 2007 energy law did not specify which kind of wood qualifies as biomass.

Progress Energy and Duke Energy announced today that they've set Aug. 23 as the date that the utilities' shareholders will vote on their merger.

The companies expect to mail investors a joint prospectus about the deal on Monday. with instructions on how to vote online, by mail, by phone or in person. Anyone who owned shares at the close of business on July 5 is eligible to vote.

Duke will hold its meeting at 10 a.m. at its offices at 526 S. Church St., Charlotte.

Progress shareholders will meet at 11 a.m. at the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts, a few blocks from the company's downtown Raleigh headquarters.

The companies announced Jan. 10 that they planned to join forces, forming the nation's largest electricity utility with 7.1 million customers in six states. The combined company will take the Duke name and have its headquarters in Charlotte.

State regulators have given Duke Energy the go-ahead to to build a transmission link in western North Carolina, ending a cultural disagreement between the Charlotte power company and the Eastern Band of Cherokees over the proposed location the electrical equipment.

Duke had originally proposed building the 100-foot-tall transmission towers and electrical relay station within view of a Cherokee holy site that is held by legend as the birthplace of the Cherokee nation. The tribe regarded Duke's proposal as a desecration.

The company has since agreed to build the $3.7 million project on an alternate site in Swain County, several miles west of Kituwah.

Approval from the N.C. Utilities Commission was the last obstacle Duke needed to clear in order to proceed with the project.

State regulators today gave their official consent to adding the 984 area code in the dozen North Carolina counties that currently use 919.

The N.C. Utilities Commission's approval sets March 31 as the date on which the second area code is adopted.

The commission order, issued today, also clears the way for phone companies in the state to make preparations to get their customers used to the idea of a second area code along with the necessity of 10-digit dialing for local calls.

Callers will have the option to use 10-digit dialing six months before it becomes required on March 31.

Triangle residents will get a second area code, along with mandatory 10-digit dialing, in less than 10 months.

The state's phone companies said today they will add the 984 area code on April 30 in the region currently served by 919.

The N.C. Telecommunications Industry Association spelled out an implementation schedule in a filing before the N.C. Utilities Commission. The commission is expected to approve the timetable.

North Carolina is not likely to join the growing ranks of critics who decry AT&T's proposed $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile.

Regulators in California and Louisiana are reviewing the planned merger of the nation's second-largest and fourth-largest wireless service providers for its potential to diminish competition and customer choice.

And just today, rival Sprint has filed its opposition with the Federal Communications Commission, saying it would give AT&T and Verizon Wireless more than 80 percent of the market.

In North Carolina, Gov. Bev Perdue supports the proposed merger. In a May 31 letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, Perdue said the merger "represents another development in the marketplace which can benefit the people of my state."
 

A green energy developer logged a request today for yet another giant solar farm in the state.

A company calling itself N.C. Renewable Energy wants to build a 1.9-megawatt solar farm in McDowell County, east of Asheville. The company expects the renewable enegy project to be generating electricity in one year, with Duke Energy paying for the green energy credits.

It wasn't long ago that a project of this size would generate big news. Today it would be the fourth largest solar farm in the state. The biggest is a 15.5-megawatt project in Davidson County that feeds into Duke Energy's power grid.

Last month a Chapel Hill company filed with the N.C. Utilities Commission to build a 4.5-megawatt solar farm in western North Carolina.