Rogers has spent the past year working to clean up a number of problem spots within the company and provide a relatively fresh start for Good.
Duke, which provides power in Warren, Butler and Hamilton counties, reached a deal with Indiana regulators over an advanced coal-fired power plant that ballooned in cost to $3.5 billion, from an original estimate of $1.9 billion. The plant began operating this month. The company also decided to close the damaged Crystal River nuclear plant near Tampa, Fla., that it inherited in the Progress acquisition. Duke has also agreed to rate increases with regulators in North Carolina and Ohio.
Now it will fall to Good to continue to repair some key relationships. North Carolina regulators and former Progress workers chaffed at a last-minute switch that put Rogers, and not the head of Progress, in charge in the hours after the companies combined a year ago.
Good, 54, has been working under Rogers since she joined Cincinnati-based Cinergy, a Duke predecessor company, in 2003. She has been Duke’s CFO since 2009.
Good said in an interview Tuesday that the healing process was well under way on both fronts. Rate agreements with North Carolina regulators in Duke and former Progress service areas have been reached in recent weeks, and Good says she will spend the next several weeks meeting with regulators in all of the company’s service areas.
Duke, based in Charlotte, N.C. serves 7.2 million customers in the Carolinas, Florida, Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio. It is the largest U.S. utility as measured by number of customers and market value.
Good said one of her chief priorities as CEO would be to find ways to keep company profits rising by looking for ways to cut costs and grow the company even without rising electricity sales.
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