Roy Cooper Faces New Questions Over Duke Energy, Solar Company Ties

Former North Carolina Governor and Democratic Senate candidate Roy Cooper has seen his campaign dogged by controversy and questions about his policies and governorship. He waged war on North Carolina’s school voucher program while sending his daughter to a costly private school, his donor list has an Epstein problem, and he runs from questions about releasing thousands of dangerous criminals, and more than 600 have been charged with serious felonies, including 18 who went on to commit murder.

Now there’s another scandal dropping on the Cooper campaign, this time with his dealings with Duke Energy, a Cooper donor, and energy companies like Strata Solar, a company with which Cooper’s family reportedly has a land lease.

The story starts in 2019, when WBTV reported that Cooper used a permit for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) as leverage in a deal between Duke Energy — a major Cooper donor — and solar companies, one that would see Duke Energy purchasing more solar power and likely benefit Cooper himself.

In documents obtained by WBTV, the ACP is a project being developed by Virginia-based Dominion Energy and Duke Energy to bring natural gas from West Virginia, through Virginia, and into southeastern North Carolina. In 2018, Cooper’s administration approved a water permit for the pipeline and announced that it had signed a separate memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the ACP that would require a $57.8 million payment into a fund to assist with “economic development” in eastern North Carolina.

But prior to the signing, there was a disagreement between Duke Energy and the solar industry. In the summer of 2017, legislation was passed that intended to increase production and consumption of solar power in North Carolina. That left Duke Energy and the solar companies in a deadlock over a “technical rating that would … determine how much power the utility would purchase.”

More