In this time of disruption due to COVID-19, it’s more important than ever to celebrate young people making a difference through volunteer service.

Today through November 10, Prudential Financial and the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) are calling on North Carolina youth volunteers to apply for scholarships and national recognition through The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards.

North Carolina students in grades 5-12 are invited to apply for 2021 Prudential Spirit of Community Awards if they have made meaningful contributions to their communities through volunteering within the past 12 months — virtually or otherwise. The application is available at http://spirit.prudential.com.

“More than 25 years ago, we founded The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards to honor young volunteers working to meet the needs of our changing world — a mission that feels especially timely today,” said Charles Lowrey, chairman and CEO of Prudential Financial. “As life evolves due to COVID-19, young Americans are continuing to address urgent issues facing their communities, and we celebrate their service in hopes that they’ll inspire others to do the same.”

“While this is one of the most unusual times in recent history for American students, we know that young volunteers have a long history of rising to the challenges of the moment,” said JoAnn Bartoletti, executive director and CEO of NASSP. “Today through November 10, we call on parents, educators and local leaders to join us in celebrating the young volunteers who are innovating and adapting to serve their communities, and setting an important example for their peers in the process.”

The top middle level and high school volunteer from each state and the District of Columbia will be named State Honorees in February. They will receive $1,000 scholarships, engraved silver medallions and an invitation to the program’s national recognition events in early May.

In May, the program will name America’s top 10 youth volunteers of 2021. Those National Honorees will receive additional $5,000 scholarships, gold medallions, crystal trophies for their nominating schools or organizations, and $5,000 Prudential grants for nonprofit charitable organizations of their choice.

Local-level honorees in each state will receive awards ranging from bronze medallions to certificates. Qualifying local honorees also receive President’s Volunteer Service Awards.

The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards was created in 1995 to recognize the exemplary volunteer work of middle level and high school students. Since then, awards have been granted to more than 140,000 middle and high school students across the country at the local, state and national level. Spirit of Community programs are also conducted in Japan, Ireland, India, China and Brazil, where Prudential has significant business operations.

For complete details on the 2021 program and the stories of North Carolina’s top youth volunteers from years past, visit http://spirit.prudential.com.

A pair of collaborative milestones have been reached between Duke Energy and third-party solar developers as well as industry organizations to create a pathway for more solar energy in the Carolinas. 

“These agreements continue to advance renewable energy in the Carolinas,” said Stephen De May, Duke Energy’s North Carolina president. “Collaborative engagement was key to taking this important step forward.”

First, Duke Energy and most of the major solar industry developers in North Carolina and South Carolina have agreed to a defined process and timeline by which a substantial additional amount of solar generation will be interconnected to the Duke Energy distribution system.

Solar projects totaling several hundred megawatts (MW) will be targeted for completion in 2021 and 2022 (in addition to those projects already in process). The parties also agreed to resolve several long-standing formal and informal interconnection disputes.

The parties have filed notice of the settlement with the N.C. Utilities Commission (NCUC) and the Public Service Commission of S.C. (SCPSC) requesting regulatory approval of certain limited waivers necessary to implement the agreement.

“We’re very pleased to have reached this agreement with Duke Energy,” said Steve Levitas, senior vice president for Strategic Initiatives at Pine Gate Renewables, a fully integrated utility-scale solar developer based in Asheville, N.C. “It took a lot of hard work, creativity and good faith by both sides. We look forward to continuing to work with Duke to meet the need for clean energy resources in the Carolinas.”

In the second major milestone, Duke Energy has reached a resolution with the North Carolina Clean Energy Business Alliance and the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association to implement a fundamental change to the interconnection process.

This change – commonly referred to as “queue reform” – transitions the interconnection process from analyzing each request one by one to a more efficient process of studying interconnection requests in clusters.

The cluster study method has been adopted by several states and system operators around the nation and provides a more predictable path to interconnection – studying only those projects that are committed to becoming operational within a certain period.

This new study process will eliminate the backlog that was created when “ready” projects were delayed while the utility studied sometimes speculative projects that were in a higher spot in the utility interconnection queue. The result was a slower process for all.

Queue reform has been under development in the Carolinas for more than a year and is the product of a broad stakeholder process that resulted in the consensus approach.

Implementation of queue reform will require approval by the NCUC, SCPSC and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Also included in the filing was a proposal to provide more certainty regarding future interconnection costs for third parties.      

The Carolinas region is one of the fastest-growing solar power areas of the country. North Carolina is No. 2 in the nation for overall solar power.

Overall, Duke Energy has more than 3,500 MW of solar capacity connected to its energy grid in the Carolinas – roughly the amount to serve more than 600,000 customers.

The company has connected more than 500 solar facilities operated by other companies in the Carolinas.

The settlement only involves utility-scale solar facilities and not residential solar owners. Duke Energy has more than 25,000 rooftop solar customers in the Carolinas and continues to see healthy and steady growth in that sector along with a quick and efficient interconnection process.