Pull the plug

Gain for the few could mean pain for the many. That conclusion is hard to escape when it comes to Duke Energy's proposal to sell wholesale electricity outside its traditional monopoly service area.

Duke, based in Charlotte, is eyeing municipalities that now buy power wholesale and resell it to local customers. It wants the N.C. Utilities Commission to let it strike a deal with the city of Orangeburg, S.C., which long has bought power from S.C. Electric & Gas. Fayetteville, which buys from Progress Energy, wants the Orangeburg deal approved because it's also interested in shopping around.

In a bidding situation, it's not difficult to imagine places like Orangeburg or Fayetteville paying less for their wholesale power. But what about Durham, Chapel Hill or Charlotte, where Duke sells power directly to individual users? If the company ramped up generation capacity to serve Fayetteville, say, but then lost the wholesale contract at some point, retail customers could be left holding the bag. And they presumably would have shared in meeting the utility's expansion costs.

The Utilities Commission's Public Staff is properly skeptical of Duke's bright idea. This kind of competition in the power business looks to be a good way for someone to get shocked.