The nation’s largest utility is facing criticism from a multistate citizens coalition for its climate record.

The Duke Energy Accountability Coalition has called for shareholders to vote Duke Energy CEO Lynn Good off the Charlotte, N.C.-based company’s board of directors during its annual meeting Thursday.

In a 90-minute open video conference Tuesday, the group also called for shareholders to reject independent Director Michael G. Browning, again citing what it considers Duke’s foot-dragging record for “failures on climate performance.”

The request to shareholders, described as “formal” by the coalition, does not appear as a shareholder proposition in the company’s proxy and is therefore not included in what shareholders will be presented with in Thursday’s meeting. There is a proposal before shareholders, however, to amend the company’s bylaws to require the board chair to be an independent member of the board. Good serves as both chair and CEO.

Duke has in fact been shutting down old coal-fired power plants across its six-state service territory, but it has replaced that generation with gas-fired turbines. And though the turbines produce about half the CO2 as an old coal plant, there is a risk of methane leakage, which could be worse for the climate.

“Substituting fossil gas for coal is only good for Duke Energy’s bottom line, in the short time. What we do between now and 2030 will likely determine whether what we do after 2030 even matters or not,” said Cathy Buckley, director of statewide organizing for the North Carolina Alliance to Protect our People and the Places We Live.

“We really have to stop burning gas. Gas is so much worse than coal. We have to go directly to renewables. We have to do it fast,” she said.

Duke has pledged to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Company spokesman Randy Wheeless said it is replacing coal with new natural gas generation and intends to do that into the future, as well as keep its six nuclear reactors running, in order to maintain grid stability.

North Carolina is in the top three in the nation for solar generation, and Duke has a lot to do with that, he added.  Duke is buying solar power from independent competitive solar companies, he said, and has built a 9-MW battery storage facility, which began operations in August 2020.

Duke is also building utility-scale solar in Florida, Wheeless said.

But Heaven Campbell, Florida program director for the nonprofit solar United Neighbors and a participant in the Accountability Coalition’s teleconference, said Duke’s program of building solar has hurt community-based solar.

“They asked ratepayers to subscribe to their utility-scale solar … that is, their utility-scale solar subscription programs. They would call them community solar. Utility-scale solar is slightly cheaper than residential solar,” Campbell said, “but not whenever it is sent to us, to the ratepayers.”

Saying that residential customers who signed up for community solar “will now be punished for creating a more resilient neighborhood grid,” Campbell said her organization focuses “heavily on preventing misinformation and educating people so that they’re empowered to advocate for better solar policy.”

Campbell cited Maryland and Minnesota as states where community solar is actually community-owned. “That’s where the community truly owns a solar garden or subscribes to a portion of solar, and then gets those direct benefits,” she said.

Buckley said North Carolina could easily grow its solar generation if Duke allows it. “If North Carolina were doing as well with rooftop and community solar as the leading states are, we could quickly produce more than twice the solar energy than we do right now.”

Duke’s corporate-wide statistics do show that solar does not account for a significant amount of power. Its latest Environmental Performance Metrics report indicates that corporate-wide, solar accounted for 1.8% of the power generated in 2020, while gas accounted for 37.1%, nuclear 35.1% and coal 20.9%.

The report also shows that while CO2 emissions have fallen from 105,000 tons in 2018 to 82,000 tons in 2020, the company’s methane emissions have grown by about 12% since 2017.