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Duke Energy: Success Stories Highlight Power Partners Awards


WEBWIRE

A commitment to excellence, customer satisfaction and the innovative use of energy and energy solutions are the traits shared by the 2007 Duke Energy Power Partner Award winners.

These companies and organizations met production goals while saving money thanks to innovative use of energy and electricity solutions.

Created in 1993, the Duke Energy Power Partner Awards recognize Duke Energy customers who share Duke Energy’s commitment to excellence and implementation of strategic energy solutions.

The 2007 Power Partners are:

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the nation’s oldest state university, is experiencing its largest-ever construction boom. Duke Energy has partnered with the university to ensure its existing electrical system is capable of meeting growing energy demand. For the first time on its system, Duke Energy is using Gas Insulated Substation (GIS) technology to rebuild all three of the university’s substations. UNC-CH also continues to partner with Duke Energy and participate in energy conservation efforts and energy efficiency collaboratives.

SGL Group – The Carbon Company (Morganton Plant)
SGL Group – The Carbon Company’s Morganton, N.C., plant produces a wide range of specialty graphite products for industrial applications and graphite electrodes for arc furnaces in the steel industry. As with other industrial customers, a key to survival is cost competitiveness. With electricity being a significant cost for the Morganton operation, SGL Group and Duke Energy worked together on a rate plan that would allow the company to increase production in response to market opportunities while managing electric costs by scheduling furnace operation during periods of relatively low hourly prices.

This has allowed the Morganton plant to achieve a very competitive average electric cost when compared to other SGL Group plants.

SGL Group and Duke Energy have also partnered on plant maintenance for preventing power interruptions and on process heating applications for reducing total energy cost.

Clemson University
With a driving vision to become a top 20 public university, Clemson University (CU) is focusing on research, energy efficiency, economic development, and community and business collaboration.

Clemson is in the process of developing or redeveloping three major initiatives:

* The Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research (CU-ICAR) in Greenville, S.C. -- a state-of-the-art research campus focused on the automotive and motor sports industry;
* The Advanced Materials Center in Pendleton, S.C., formerly the Clemson Research Park -- which houses some of the country’s finest electron microscopes
* Clemson’s IT Data Center, also located in the Advanced Materials Center.

Clemson University, in conjunction with the Anderson County Development Partnership, Duke Energy and other business partners, is redeveloping and redesigning the research park to make it a national hub for advanced materials research and new business startups.

Clemson and Duke Energy are partnering to make the IT Data Center one of the premier centers in the country, with Duke providing high performance power backup services to support Clemson’s move to high performance computing and networking.

Cytec Carbon Fibers
Cytec Carbon Fibers produces fiber used in the production of high-performance composite materials, which increasingly are being leveraged by leading aerospace manufacturers. Cytec has two facilities in the Duke Energy service area and has been working with Duke to design service plans for its expanding Greenville, S.C., site. Cytec also is partnering with Duke Energy to beef up electrical capability at its Greenville site to serve a new, state-of-the-art carbon fiber manufacturing line that will require additional energy infrastructures.

Duke Energy’s Carolinas’ operations include nuclear, coal-fired, natural gas and hydroelectric generation. That diverse fuel mix provides nearly 21,000 megawatts of safe, reliable and competitively priced electricity to more than 2.3 million electric customers in a 24,000-square-mile service area of North Carolina and South Carolina.

Duke Energy, one of the largest electric power companies in the United States, supplies and delivers energy to approximately 4 million U.S. customers. The company has nearly 37,000 megawatts of electric generating capacity in the

Midwest and the Carolinas, and natural gas distribution services in Ohio and Kentucky. In addition, Duke Energy has more than 4,000 megawatts of electric generation in Latin America, and is a joint-venture partner in a U.S. real estate company.

Headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., Duke Energy is a Fortune 500 company traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol DUK. More information about the company is available on the Internet at: www.duke-energy.com.



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