Progress Energy history

The Buck Steam Station, named after the company's late founder, went on line in 1927, the first of many steam plants that were later to dwarf the original hydroelectric network.

W.S. Lee's career as one of the country's top power plant engineers came to an abrupt halt in October of 1929, the crash and ensuing lean years ending all plans for future construction in the Piedmont.

In the midst of these hard times, Lee died in 1934 at the age of 63, bringing to an end the first generation of leaders at Duke Power.

In August 1946, the company's shares were distributed to National Power & Light shareholders, half of which went to Electric Bond and Share.

In 1948 alone, Carolina Power & Light added 3,000 miles of rural lines and 19,253 new rural customers.

The two largest of these, Dan River and Plant Lee, were in service by 1952 and together added 320,000 kilowatts to the Duke Power grid; both plants were praised as being unusually well engineered.

Even as they continued adding ever-larger steam plants, more than doubling the company's capacity during the 1950s, Duke Power engineers had become much interested in the long-term potential of nuclear energy as an alternative source of electricity. It was no doubt this tradition of engineering excellence that encouraged Duke to join with three other utilities in a 1956 venture called Carolinas-Virginia Nuclear Power Association.

Its Parr Shoals, South Carolina plant opened in 1962, the first nuclear facility in the southeastern United States and a generally successful conclusion to the years of planning required.

Steam construction continued apace, including the world's largest such plant located at Lake Norman, North Carolina, but in 1967 Duke Power received a permit from the Atomic Energy Commission to build the first of its full-scale nuclear units, the Oconee Nuclear Station.

To feed its massive coal system, in 1970 Duke Power bought four coal mines in Harlan County, Kentucky, creating a new subsidiary called Eastover Mining to operate the mines.

In 1971, the company achieved notoriety as the defendant in Griggs v.

A 1973 labor dispute between mine workers and Duke Energy was the subject of the documentary Harlan County, USA. The film documents the use of “gun thugs” to intimidate striking workers.

In 1974 a belated rate hike approval from the North Carolina Utilities Commission buoyed the company, with sales in that year hitting $823 million and net income $103 million.

The proportion of electricity generated by nuclear energy at Duke rose rapidly, reaching 31 percent as early as 1975, and Duke Power's overall capacity approximately doubled during the same short span.

By 1977 sales again had jumped, to $1.3 billion, but Duke Power already had begun scaling back its plans for a wholesale shift to nuclear power.

In 1988, Nantahala Power & Light Co., which served southwestern North Carolina, was purchased by Duke and is now operated under the Duke Power Nantahala Area brand.

In 1989 the latter consisted of 26 units that together generated only two percent of Duke's 13-million-kilowatt capacity.

In 1990 construction proceeded&mdashead of schedule--on Duke's $1.1 billion Bad Creek Hydroelectric Station.

Duke Power merged with PanEnergy in 1997 to form Duke Energy.

Florida Progress was founded in the 1890s as St Petersburg Electric Light & Power Company and took the name Florida Power in 1927. It engaged in talks with a British utility company, Scottish Power, but they fell apart in April 1999, leading to the sale to Carolina Power & Light later in the year.

In 2000, Carolina Power & Light bought Florida Power Corporation and changed its name to Progress Energy.

Price, Dudley, "Corporate Parent to Eliminate Carolina Power & Light," News & Observer , October 3, 2002.

The company built a new headquarters in downtown Raleigh in 2004.

It has been called the Duke Energy Corporation since it merged in 2006 with the Cinergy Coporation, a Cincinnati-based electricity company.

On January 3, 2007, Duke Energy spun off its gas business to form Spectra Energy.

On January 10, 2011, Duke Energy announced plans to take over Progress Energy in a $26 billion deal resulting in the country's largest electric utility with 7.1 million customers.