Story Collection Project
The Utility Fairness NOW campaign is working to ensure people across North Carolina have affordable, reliable, and safe energy. We are currently collecting stories and feedback from North Carolinians about their energy bills to help us push for a more fair system — one that prioritizes people over polluting monopolies, like Duke Energy.
This is a project meant to spotlight the voices of people who have faced problems with their energy utility bills. Whether it is about a technical error on their bill, or harm brought on by high energy prices, their stories deserve to be heard. We are striving to portray the impacts of energy issues in this state via meaningful stories, which can effectively complement long reports, statistics, and infographics
Target Audience
We will share stories with General Assembly legislators, Governor Stein, and elected officials who can pass policies that lower our energy bills. The stories we collect will connect real people’s names and faces to these problems, and go beyond what statistics can provide alone. This will help us convince legislators and officials to take action. By pooling and elevating the experiences of people in our state, their grievances can be heard more powerfully and effectively.
How You Can Help
Most importantly, we want to hear your story: how have your utility bills affected you?
What North Carolinians Have Told Us
“More and more fees are being added, and increasing – so no matter how much I conserve, the monthly bill is at least $25 over the actual cost of electricity. I’m retired, and on a fixed income, so it’s a big concern for me. These are business costs, unfairly falling on consumers I believe, while Duke executive salaries/compensation is in the millions and increasing, and the focus is only on shareholder’s return. This is an essential utility, and the cost should be stable, fair and affordable for folks.”
“There are typically a couple of winter months where gas expense spikes, and summer months where electricity can spike even more. I am lucky that it is not an issue, but can be a little anxious as to just how high it will be.”
“I’ve had higher energy bills lately (more so than the usual hot summer increase) despite rarely turning on the downstairs ac and only turning on the ac upstairs in the evening/night. It’s hard to determine the reason for the increase even when looking through the bill.”
Our Volunteers
Some photos of us collecting stories in the wild.
