Bragg Financial is pleased to celebrate ten years of support for Trail of History.

Serving high net worth families with portfolio management and planning advice.

Bragg Financial is committed to to our clients and our community Braggfinancial.com.

(bright music) (bright music) - [Announcer] This is a production of PBS Charlotte (electricity buzzes) (gentle music) - [Narrator] Electricity, the secret sauce that makes so much of the modern world possible, streaming through the power lines as it flows into our homes, businesses, schools, hospitals and factories, providing the energy for everything from the phones in our pockets, computers in our offices, and increasingly the cars we drive.

Around the Charlotte region there's one name that's synonymous with electricity.

Can you guess it?

Duke Energy.

- Duke Energy has been powering the lives and the vitality of our communities for over 120 years.

- [Narrator] Coming up, we'll flip the light switch and illuminate the history of the company and its journey from a small local utility powering a few cotton mills to becoming one of the largest utility companies in the country.

- It was James B. Duke's vision to promote economic prosperity for the state of North Carolina, and I think that's part of our DNA.

- [Narrator] We'll meet the folks who put boots on the ground and sometimes face unbearable conditions to keep the lights on during a storm.

- It's not made for everybody.

Not everybody wants to be a lineman.

- [Narrator] Learn how the company is modernizing both the ways of generating electricity and how the power gets to the customers.

- We are seeing phenomenal growth in North Carolina.

It is at a historic speed and scope like we've not seen for decades.

- [Narrator] Then see how for more than 40 years the company has given back to the communities it serves through the work of the Duke Energy Foundation.

- We have a really deep sense of commitment, of citizenship, and of service to serve our communities well.

- [Narrator] All that and more on this episode of "Trail of History."

(upbeat music) (meaningful music) Throughout history, you'll find countless examples of technological advancements changing and often disrupting the way we live.

In the mid 1400s, Johannes Gutenberg debuted the printing press, advancing the spread of knowledge.

Fast forward a few hundred years and 18th-century engineer James Watt revolutionized the steam engine, (steam whistle toots) in turn, transforming both manufacturing and transportation.

Then in 1879, Thomas Edison perfected the incandescent light bulb.

And a few years later, Edison's rival Nikolai Tesla introduced alternating current, the electricity standard used around the world.

Edison and Tesla likely had no idea that electricity was about to light the way out of the struggling post-Civil War economy here in the Carolinas.

(gentle music) Historically, the Northern states dominated manufacturing with mills located on rivers, powered by large water wheels or steam engines.

This concentration of the mills meant transporting Southern-grown cotton hundreds of miles north for processing into textiles.

But the dawning age of electricity was about to change all that.

- [Chris] The electrifying of the Piedmont Carolinas was fantastic for this region.

- [Narrator] The Southern textile boom started in the 1890s, thanks to electricity.

In 1900, entrepreneurs and brothers Dr. Gill Wylie and Robert Wylie, along with a partner, formed the Catawba Power Company, Their first project: building the India Hook Dam on the Catawba River near Rock Hill, South Carolina.

After four years of planning and construction, in March of 1904, the first hydroelectric dam on the Catawba River went into operation.

At the time, they only had one customer: the Victoria Textile Mill in Rock Hill.

It was a major success for the young Catawba Power Company, but if they were to grow, they would need more capital.

Dr. Gill Wylie worked as a physician in New York City and it was there he made a fateful house call to the home of James B. Duke.

- Mr. James B. Duke was in New York with his business, the American Tobacco Company.

He and his family had obtained their wealth through tobacco and textile interests in the South.

(hooves clopping) At one point, Mr. Duke had a sore toe.

He called upon Dr. Gill Wylie to come over to his home.

And in doing so, there was this conversation with Mr. Duke about the fall of the water of the Catawba River.

And so that got the conversation started about electrification and how you could use this fall of the water to help generate and establish bigger textile mills in the South that could bring the businesses from the North down to the South and help the South prosper.

- [Narrator] They also discussed William States Lee, the chief engineer of the Catawba Power Company.

- He was a South Carolina native, went to school at the Citadel, was really good friends with Dr. Gill Wylie, helped him to create and build the Catawba Power Company, and eventually had the role as chief engineer for the Southern Power Company on into the Duke Power Company.

- [Narrator] So in 1905 with James B. Duke on board and all the pieces in place, the Catawba Power Company became the Southern Power Company, and almost immediately work started on the Great Falls Dam, further down the Catawba River at a cost of $1.6 million.

The Great Falls Dam started sending power to Charlotte in April of 1907.

Other dams along the river soon followed, significantly impacting the region.

- Basically, a lot of the textile businesses that were in the North were now relocating, or new businesses in textiles were starting businesses within the Piedmont Carolinas, which was boosting the economy.

It was bringing other businesses to the area.

It was helping to create stronger relationships with communities.

It helped Charlotte to grow.

It was just a wealth of prosperous times for the the Piedmont Carolinas.

(jaunty music) - [Narrator] The next big change came in 1924 when the Southern Power Company changed its name to the Duke Power Company, setting the stage for further growth and expansion.

- The progression of our generation makeup obviously begins with hydro and then slowly starts to progress into coal.

In 1911, the very first coal station that we created was the Greenville South Carolina Steam station.

And then gradually more fossil coal was built.

Move forward several years, and then in the late '60s, we announced that we are going to break ground on the Keowee Toxaway project, which would include the Oconee Nuclear Station.

And in the early '70s, the Oconee Nuclear Station would be up and running with three nuclear units, the first nuclear station built, designed, and ran by Duke Power.

- [Narrator] Chris Hamrick works as Duke Energy's senior archivist.

- I'm responsible for preserving our corporate history.

A typical day could include scanning images into a digital format to assist corporate communications.

It could even consist of doing some research for a nuclear site or an engineering site.

- [Narrator] Throughout the years, he's become the steward of the company's history and unique artifacts.

- We have the original books from the company, the Catawba Power Company.

We have gas meters, electric meters, we have photos of our executives, we have employee photos, we have collections from our legacy companies.

That could be Florida Power, Cinergy, Cincinnati Gas and Electric, Nantahala Power and Light.

It just runs the gamut.

This is a interesting oil portrait.

It is of a young James B. Duke, that's part of our collection, contrasted with an older image of Mr. Duke.

You have the meters that were within the control offices and control rooms of those generation stations that would show kilowatts, voltage, amps, so on and so forth.

Here we have some appliances.

These types of appliances, and actually these appliances, were sold within our branches.

So we used to have a system of branches.

The community could go into those branches to pay their power bill, to start service, to stop service.

- [Narrator] While the collection itself is important from a historical perspective, it's also useful to the day-to-day operations at Duke Energy.

- We get requests from various business units for various types of questions and asks.

That could be progress, construction photographs for an issue or a concern at a station.

Or it could be just to look back at how things were constructed.

It could be about an event that was led by some community leaders within the organization, or it could be for just basic research and information that a group is looking for.

- [Narrator] The archives give a glimpse at how throughout the 20th century Duke Power continued evolving and expanding through various mergers, eventually leading to another name change, formerly becoming Duke Energy in 1997.

(lofty music) - The growth that we're seeing now and in in the future that we're predicting is beyond anything that we've seen in my 28 years, which is exciting.

That means that our states are growing, that businesses are coming to our states.

There's more jobs, more tax revenue for those states and those communities.

And we have to be prepared for that.

And it's exciting to work on that to see what we're gonna build next.

How we're gonna strengthen our grid to be able to serve that.

How are we gonna build the infrastructure?

Data centers?

That's a lot of large loads that are coming to our service territory.

And how do we serve them reliably and affordably and make sure they fit into our system?

- [Narrator] Headquartered in Charlotte, the company that started with just one dam on the Catawba River today is now one of the largest electric utility companies in the country.

As of March, 2025, the company employs over 27,000 people, serves around 8.4 million electric customers and another 1.7 million natural gas customers.

- Our core mission is to reliably and affordably serve the customers in North Carolina.

That's at our core.

People wanna move to North Carolina.

Businesses are coming to North Carolina.

It's a very exciting time.

It's gonna come with challenges, but we're gonna need to have a diverse portfolio of assets to meet all this growth.

- [Narrator] That generation portfolio includes nuclear, hydroelectric, solar, natural gas, coal, wind, and battery storage.

Keeping the lights on so to speak, takes thousands of employees with unique skill sets.

Employees like Luke Davis here at the Marshall Steam Station located on Lake Norman.

- You know we've got transmission, we've got all kinds of other groups and entities that are helping keep the lights on.

It's our job here to come in every day, make sure we keep the plant running and keep our stuff maintained and run it as efficiently as possible.

- [Narrator] Marshall started generating electricity in 1965.

The coal-fired plan at its peak capacity produces over 2,000 megawatts.

In 2021, Duke Energy upgraded the plant by converting the boilers to simultaneously burn both coal as well as natural gas.

- [Luke] What it's doing is it's supplementing the coal usage.

So now we're burning cleaner natural gas.

- [Narrator] As utilities work to reduce CO2 emissions, Kendal Bowman, president of Duke Energy's utility operations in North Carolina says coal's days are numbered at Duke here in the Carolinas.

- So in the Carolinas, we have retired more than two thirds of our coal plants and we are on track to retire the rest of them by 2035, providing we get regulatory approval and we can build replacement generation to serve the load.

- [Narrator] At Marshall, Duke Energy plans to build two brand new gas-fired units to replace coal units as they're retired.

(gentle music) But emissions aren't the only environmental issue with burning coal.

There's also the issue of coal ash and how to store it safely.

At the Dan River Station, a containment failure in 2014 occurred in a basin built to hold the ash that sent ash flowing into the Dan River.

We asked Bowman about that day.

- The Dan River spill occurred on Super Bowl Sunday in 2014.

I think a day most Duke Energy employees will remember.

There were a lot of lessons learned.

We are more focused.

We took responsibility for the spill, we apologized for the spill.

We have cleaned up everything related to the Dan River spill and we're moving forward.

- [Narrator] Bowman says decommissioning their coal-fired plants takes a methodical approach and each site is different, including how to store decades of coal ash.

- So decommissioning the coal facility, a lot of it is site specific, it's quite an involved process and we work closely with all of the stakeholders.

Takes a little bit of a time, you've gotta do it slowly and precisely.

Coal ash is being stored on site in lined landfills, so there's no penetration to the water whatsoever and inappropriate regards to the regulations and rules that are in place.

- [Narrator] Bowman says Duke Energy's overall goal for carbon reduction is much bigger than just retiring the remaining fleet of coal-fired units.

- Our company goals in terms of carbon reduction is to get to net zero by 2050, and we'd love to get to at least 50% of carbon by 2030.

- [Narrator] In order to meet their goals, she says their fleet of nuclear plants will be essential.

- We operate the largest regulated nuclear fleet in the country, and we have 11 units between North Carolina and South Carolina.

And we believe we're gonna need all of those to continue to operate for an additional 20 years in order to help us meet our carbon reduction goals.

And in addition to the existing nuclear fleet, we strongly believe we need new nuclear, advanced nuclear technologies.

- [Narrator] In March, 2025, Duke Energy received a license extension for the Oconee Nuclear Station in Seneca, South Carolina.

The extension will keep the turbine spinning into the 2050s.

But nuclear isn't the only option for Duke to meet its environmental goals.

- [Kendal] North Carolina has been, on any given day, anywhere from number two to number four in the country in terms of connected solar on our system.

And the state passed some policies starting in 2007 and subsequent policies thereafter that really put us in the position to connect so much solar in the states.

- [Narrator] Back at Marshall, the new and modern natural gas units will mean new opportunities for the employees working there.

- It's new technology.

I mean, so when they put it in, all the operators here, mechanics, everybody involved have to learn how to run it, knowing what troubles come up, how to fix it.

The biggest thing that excites me is being able to move on to the new plant that they're gonna build.

Being able to see it come from the ground up.

- [Narrator] Natural gas won't replace every retired coal unit.

Some sites might see solar installations.

While others, like the Allen Steam Station in Gaston County will have battery storage that takes advantage of the existing grid infrastructure.

(lofty music) While workers like Davis on the generation side of Duke Energy create power, it takes a virtual army of lineworkers to get that electricity from the plants to your homes and businesses.

Sam McCarter started as a lineworker fresh out of high school.

He says the big thing keeping both Duke lineworkers and those contracted by the company busy is modernizing the electric grid.

- We do a lot of system upgrades where we put larger wire in to tie circuits together where our outages aren't as long.

You know, we have a lot of smart grid where mechanicals that operate back and forth can talk to one another and it makes outage times a lot shorter.

- [Narrator] It's difficult work, often performed in hazardous conditions.

- Most people who do this work wanna do this work.

The trade itself has a way of vetting people out that don't really wanna do this.

You know, you can take someone on a storm and you're not in the best conditions and they figure out pretty quick if they really wanna do this or not.

- [Narrator] General repairs and maintenance to the electric grid make up the bread and butter of a lineworker's job, but it's Mother Nature who keeps it interesting.

- Storms are always a part of a utilities business and we spend a lot of time preparing for 'em year round.

We have good processes.

We try to learn from every storm and make it better every time.

And always loved the term, not all heroes wear capes, some wear hard hats.

And that is very true when you look at a storm.

- [Narrator] For many lineworkers, it's these moments where their skills and talents shine.

- When we have a severe weather event, whether it's a tornado or a severe thunderstorm or a hurricane that comes, this is where our linemen thrive.

They wanna get out there, they wanna get lights back on for customers as quick as they can.

But first and foremost is safety.

- And when you think about our customers, the storm is when they're at their most vulnerable.

They've lost power, they don't know when it's gonna come back.

And power is vital for them to do everything else, clean up their homes, do other things.

So we're very laser focused on taking care of our customers during storms.

(soft music) - [Narrator] Near Florence, South Carolina, Danny Haithcock, who's got a few storms under his belt inspects just some of the heavy equipment his Duke Energy crews use in the field.

- [Danny] My job entails ensuring that I maintain the integrity of the transmission lines.

- [Narrator] Haithcock has more than three decades of experience as a lineworker, but it's not the career that he had imagined.

- I was like, I never thought about doing linework before, you know?

'Cause I was in kinda like an automotive doing paint body and this that and the other.

Studied a lot in school and vocational.

- [Narrator] All that changed when he married his high school sweetheart, Melinda.

- My grandfather and father both worked with the power company.

- So about a year or two in our marriage, I just had an opportunity to go to work with her grandfather and told him, "Sure I'll try it."

And lo and behold, here I am, you know, some 38, 39 years later doing linework.

- [Narrator] But wait, the family tradition doesn't stop there.

- Danny married me and then he got into linework.

And then our boys growing up, they always said that they were gonna be linemen, so they just followed in their father's footsteps and here we are today.

- [Narrator] That's right.

The couple's three sons, Josh, Zach, and Christian, are all lineworkers working for Duke Energy.

- Every little boy wants to be like his dad.

It was pretty much a no-brainer knowing what I wanted to do all through high school.

And here we are now.

- [Narrator] It should come as no surprise that everyone at the Haithcock's table understands the importance of lineworkers.

- You look at everything in this world now, it's been touched by electricity.

These people are at home at nighttime, their lights go out and you got this very special skillset that goes and allows you to perform it safely and get their lights back on so they can live in comfort every day.

It's just a all around rewarding job.

- [Narrator] The life of a lineworker is filled with long hours, sometimes in the harshest of conditions and many times missing major family moments.

- I couldn't imagine what life would be like if I didn't have a supportive spouse.

Because my wife has been so supportive, I can't say that she hasn't been frustrated at times because I would go every time the phone rang.

I always told them "yes," I never told 'em "no."

Even though we were dressed to go out for dinner for the evening.

She grew up in it, that's what helps.

- And I always worry about them, but when they're going on a storm, I really, you know, I used to have one to worry about.

Now I have four that I have to worry about.

I'm proud to be a lineman's wife and a lineman's mom because, you know, they have a very dangerous job and they make me proud every day.

- [Narrator] The Duke Energy Foundation serves as the company's philanthropic arm providing millions of dollars in grants and Duke's employees donate thousands of volunteer hours in the community's Duke Energy serves.

- The Duke Energy Foundation started 40 years ago to cement the legacy of citizenship and service to the company's DNA.

And the last 40 years, we've given more than $500 million to communities across our jurisdictions.

And we've done that through partnership with more than 20,000 nonprofit organizations.

So the Duke Energy Foundation shows up in a couple ways.

We show up with competitive grants and then we also show up with our employees.

Our employees donate more than $4 million worth of their time each year in direct service to nonprofits.

- We all like to put our little blue shirts on and go out and do hands-on work, helping agencies and communities.

- [Narrator] In October of 2024, employees at the corporate headquarters in Charlotte put on those blue shirts to pack sacks of apples for Second Harvest Food Bank, apples to be distributed in areas impacted by Hurricane Helene in Western North Carolina.

- [Amy] Duke Energy Foundation is focused on grants serving vibrant economies, climate resiliency, and opportunity and inclusion.

- [Narrator] Recently the foundation provided a $500,000 grant to jumpstart a new lineworker training program here at Central Piedmont's Harper Campus.

- This is our electrical lineworker training program.

Students will get a class A CDL, they'll get an OSHA 10, and then we will teach 'em the ins and outs of how to operate a line truck, how to set poles, how to run electrical lines.

- [Narrator] The 16-week course challenges the students.

- Coming out in these conditions, it's cold, hot, sunny, rainy, whatever, it's, I think that's the hardest part.

- [Narrator] Beyond access to industry-standard equipment, students learn from instructors with decades in the field, like former Duke Energy lineworker Terry Weathers.

- Well, it's a passion of mine to pass along what I've learned from Duke for 37 years.

I love coming here every day, passing along my skills and my knowledge to these young guys.

And I see myself in them.

- [Narrator] For both Duke Energy and the Duke Energy Foundation, investing in this and other lineworker training programs in the region is a win-win for all involved.

- Workforce development is a very important part of what we're doing, and especially with the growth that we're seeing, that we need more workers, we need more people to come into our industry.

- [Kendal] The region is booming if you drive around Charlotte.

And we need the utility workers that are gonna be there to help us expand the grid and develop this community appropriately.

- [Narrator] During the 16 weeks at Central Piedmont, students attend class five days a week, making it difficult for some students to enroll.

In order to help remove the financial burdens for women interested in the program, the Duke Energy Foundation partnered with the non-profit She Built This City.

- A few years ago, CPCC came to us that they were gonna be launching a lineworker program and they noted that they wanted to have increased diversity in that program.

They wanted to see more women specifically.

Duke Energy Foundation came to us with a solution that they would underwrite a wage, a living wage for a female that graduated from our program to go through that lineworker program.

We've been able to work with them to identify individuals who meet the expectations of both CPCC and Duke Energy.

And through their gracious donations, She Built The City has been able to underwrite a salary for those individuals to be able to take the training.

- By having those wraparound services that might help pay for things like childcare while you're in training, we're able to make sure those women are able to take advantage of top-notch professional development opportunities that are gonna change the trajectory for their families.

(bright music) - [Narrator] Electricity generated from the Lake Wylie Dam here on the Catawba River has powered homes, businesses, and industry for over 120 years.

It's the starting point for what became an economic driver in the Carolinas, both through the power Duke Energy provides, but also as a large regional employer.

- We provide a critical resource.

I think the the world is definitely electrified and we want to continue to provide affordable, reliable, clean electricity to everybody.

- I love our company and I love what our company does.

And it really drives me.

And to see our employees do the things they do really makes me proud.

You know, we just went through Hurricane Helene up here in the Carolinas as all our other states.

And to see the work that our folks do, some of these folks were impacted by the storms themselves and showed up the next day to help our customers.

That's just a feeling you don't get anywhere else.

And that really helps motivate me and drive me to lead them better and to give them what they need so that we can continue to serve our customers.

- [Narrator] So the next time you charge your smartphone, flip on the TV to binge your favorite show, or simply turn the light on to start your day, now you know just a little bit more about Duke Energy and the people who power the Charlotte region and beyond.

Thank you for watching this episode of "Trail of History."

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (lofty music) - [Announcer] A production of PBS Charlotte.