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Duke Energy denies liability claims for rolling blackouts in December

Duke Energy said impacted customers should submit a claim to their insurance carrier or FEMA for any loss claims related to the outages.

MECKLENBURG COUNTY, N.C. — Duke Energy says it will not pay any liability claims for the rolling blackouts in December. During Christmas weekend, the utility company did staggered blackouts in and around Charlotte to counteract the high energy demand from extreme cold.

In the aftermath of the rolling blackouts, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said in a Tweet he was "deeply concerned about people who lost power and who didn’t get notice about rotating outages" and had asked Duke Energy for a complete report on what happened.

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The company later apologized for not communicating those blackouts well with customers, saying the rotating outages were the first in company history, and that the rolling blackouts helped to avoid potentially larger outages. 

"Due to the extreme weather conditions associated with Winter Storm Elliot that resulted in wind-related outages and which demanded extraordinary steps to protect the electric grid in the Carolinas from expanded outages due to very high customer demand for electricity, we have denied claims related to losses related to these weather-related outages," Duke Energy said, in part, in a statement Friday.

Duke Energy also said that impacted customers should submit a claim to their insurance carrier or FEMA for any loss claims related to the outages.

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