Dive Summary:

• Duke Energy and Progress Energy offered incentives to some of their biggest customers to dampen any potential opposition to the merger.
• The release of 17 private settlements shows that the merged company’s industrial customers were able to negotiate a six percent rate cut even though household and business customers face potential increases.
• Deals such as these were available to utilities commissioners as well as lawyers and others involved in the merger under the condition that the involved parties sign nondisclosure agreements.

From the article:

Progress Energy and Duke Energy offered their big-ticket electricity customers substantial sweeteners in exchange for promises not to fight their utility merger, ranging from potential rate cuts and special discounts to lump sum payments.

The terms of those secret deals were made public Friday in response to a request by the N.C. Waste Awareness and Reduction Network, a Durham nonprofit, and a media coalition that included The Charlote Observer, to unseal the documents that the power companies and their large customers had fought to keep confidential. ...