The op-ed published Thursday by former Environmental Quality Secretary Donald van der Vaart (“Solar deals making Duke bills higher”) misleadingly blames solar power for increases in customers’ bills.

The reality is that growth of solar in North Carolina has helped mitigate bill increases that are largely caused by bad decisions from Duke Energy.

A significant portion of the last rate increase request Duke made was to ask customers to pay to clean up the toxic coal ash mess it has created across the state — a mess Duke knew about for years and failed to address.

Another reason customers’ bills are going up instead of down is because Duke continues to rely on old, expensive coal plants. Numerous studies have shown that retiring these plants today and replacing them with clean energy would save customers millions.

While I agree with van der Vaart’s point that customers are paying more on their bills than they need to, the reason for that is Duke’s reliance on outdated energy sources of the past instead of taking full advantage of the energy sources of today, which are cheaper and cleaner.

— Dave Rogers

Durham