Air Quality Initiatives

Improving air quality in the United States has been and continues to be one of our top priorities. We’ve invested more than $7.5 billion in environmental control equipment since 1999 to lower emissions from our power plants. These efforts have reduced sulfur dioxide (SO₂) emissions by 90 percent and nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions by 68 percent.

The SO₂ and NOx controls (scrubbers and selective catalytic reduction) we’ve installed have the co-benefit of capturing a significant amount of mercury. When burning eastern bituminous coal, this co-benefit can realize up to a 95 percent reduction in stack mercury emissions.

Duke Energy also uses a diverse mix of generating technologies, such as natural gas, nuclear, coal, hydroelectricity and increasing amounts of renewable energy to generate energy that’s cleaner and more affordable for customers.