← EditionsEdition 01 · April 21, 2026

The Launch Edition · Power Report

Big Tech, Data Centers & A.I. on North Carolina's power grid.

How Silicon Valley's largest companies — Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta — are quietly reshaping North Carolina's power grid, energy policy, and political map. One lobbyist at a time.

Lapel Editorial·A 6‑minute read · Three chapters·Illustrations by Lapel

Illustration · The compute core sits above a grid of data centers — each a quiet, enormous consumer of power. Composed by Lapel.

Chapter I

When Big Tech comes to the Capitol

Twelve companies, 43 lobbyists, and Raleigh's most connected operators on retainer.

Chapter II

The Data Center Boom

Ninety‑two facilities. Ten billion in Amazon spend. Nearly 2 GW added to Duke's forecast in a year.

Chapter III

The Policy Battleground

The Power Bill Reduction Act rewrote the rules. Tech wants them rewritten again.

Inside

The five bridge lobbyists

The operators who represent Big Tech and the utilities suing for their load.

The Big Picture · April 21, 2026

The lobbying landscape, in six numbers.

North Carolina's active lobbying registry, as of this week. Every number below is pulled from filings made in the last thirty days.

Active Lobbyists

630

Registered this session

Registered Clients

1,298

Corporate & non‑profit

Active Registrations

2,867

Lobbyist‑client pairings

Big Tech Companies

With NC filings

Tech Lobbyists

Unique, active

Bridge Lobbyists

Registered with both sectors

Chapter One · The Arrival

The five lobbyists who bridge tech and energy.

Twelve technology companies now lobby in Raleigh. Twelve energy clients anchor the opposing side. Between them sit five operators with active registrations in both camps — the people in the room when data‑center policy gets made.

5Bridge lobbyists with active tech and energy registrations.

43Tech lobbyists registered in NC, April 2026.

9Registered lobbyists for Amazon — the deepest single tech team.

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Chapter I · Power Brokers

The five lobbyists who bridge tech and energy.

Five operators hold active registrations with both major technology companies and energy utilities — positioning them at the exact intersection where data‑center policy gets made.

D. Bowen Heath — 23 clients, two sectors. Google + Dominion Energy + Koch + DuPont + Airbnb + 18 others. One phone call, two sides of every data‑center debate.

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Tracy W. Kimbrell — 15 clients, SAS + Duke. Holds registrations with SAS Institute and Duke Energy simultaneously. When Duke needs to talk to Cary, Kimbrell is the call.

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Drew Moretz — Cisco + Montauk Energy. Sixteen clients across networking infrastructure and natural gas — the two commodities a data center cannot operate without.

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Thomas Wayne Sevier — SAS + Dominion, 19 clients. Quietly active on the NCUC side of the energy debate as SAS lobbies for AI procurement standards.

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Johnny L. Tillett — Google + Dominion, 17 clients. When Google wants a clean‑energy tariff and Dominion wants to control procurement, Tillett is on retainer for both.

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Chapter I · Company Profile

Amazon: 9 lobbyists, one $10 billion bet.

Amazon has the largest lobbying operation of any tech company in North Carolina, anchored by its massive data‑center investment in Richmond County.

Amazon plans to invest an estimated $10 billion in North Carolina data centers, expanding cloud and AI infrastructure through AWS. The company's nine registered lobbyists represent one of the deepest government‑affairs teams of any single corporate client in the state — healthcare included.

The bet is concentrated in Richmond County, a rural corner of south‑central North Carolina that has historically courted economic development. The project will demand electricity on a scale that pushed Duke Energy to revise its large‑load forecast upward by nearly two gigawatts in a single year.

"When Amazon moves, the grid moves with it."— NCUC staff, Large Load Conference, Oct. 2025

Amazon's choice to anchor its NC team with Harold Brubaker — the former House Speaker Pro Tem — was a signal to the General Assembly, not to AWS. The same firm also represents both major parties' favored consultants.

Brubaker, Harold

Fmr. NC Speaker Pro Tem

Amazon

Kostrzewa, Theresa

Multi-sector lobbyist

Amazon

Harold Brubaker anchors the legislative side; Theresa Kostrzewa carries the multi‑sector portfolio. + 7 others on the full Amazon roster →

Chapter Two · The Boom

Ninety‑two data centers, and counting.

North Carolina now hosts at least 92 data center facilities, and Duke Energy's large‑load forecast has surged by nearly 2 GW in a single year. Who pays for that new demand — and how — is the story of the rest of this edition.

92Data center facilities currently operating or under construction in NC.

+2 GWOne‑year jump in Duke's 2035 load forecast, driven by Amazon‑scale announcements.

Chapter II · Grid Impact

Duke's load forecast: 5.9 gigawatts by 2035.

Duke Energy updated its large electric load forecast to 5.9 GW by 2035 — an increase of nearly 2 GW from just 12 months earlier. The surge is driven almost entirely by data‑center commitments.

5.9GWDuke's revised large‑load forecast by 2035 — up from 4.0 GW twelve months ago.

NC Large‑Load Forecast · Gigawatts by 2035

To put 5.9 GW in perspective: that's roughly the output of six nuclear reactors, or enough electricity to power more than four million homes. The forecast was revised upward after Amazon announced its $10 billion NC investment in late 2025 — a single commitment that reshaped the utility's entire resource plan.

Duke filed its revised Carolinas Resource Plan shortly after the Power Bill Reduction Act removed the state's 2030 interim carbon target. The plan proposes adding up to 12.3 gigawatts of fossil fuel generation by 2040. Environmental groups call it a generational step backward.

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Chapter II · Local Impact

Communities push back: moratoriums and pauses.

As data‑center proposals multiply, the tension between economic development and local impact is landing in town halls across North Carolina. Mooresville is weighing caps on new data‑center square footage under a zoning framework never designed for hyperscale use. Surry County commissioners are reviewing a moratorium over noise, water, and light‑pollution concerns. Chatham County, in the middle of its own explosive growth, has held an informal pause rather than formalize one. And Iredell County — which contains Mooresville — has staff studying water and power capacity impacts while neighboring jurisdictions move first.

Chapter Three · The Battleground

Who pays for the power?

Data centers consume enormous amounts of electricity. Who pays for the new generation capacity, and what fuel sources power it, is the defining energy policy question in North Carolina. It is, increasingly, a lobbying question.

12.3Gigawatts of new fossil fuel capacity Duke proposes by 2040.

11Registered lobbyists for Duke Energy — largest energy team.

5Bridge lobbyists between tech and energy.

2030The interim carbon target the legislature removed.

Chapter III · Duke Energy's Team

Eleven lobbyists for the state's largest utility.

Duke Energy Business Services LLC maintains the largest energy‑sector lobbying team in North Carolina — a reflection of the company's central role in every major energy policy debate.

Top Energy Clients · Lobbyists Registered · NC

Duke Energy

NC Electric Cooperatives

NC Sustainable Energy

Carolinas Clean Energy

Duke's eleven registered lobbyists include former legislators, senior government‑affairs professionals, and attorneys who collectively cover every policy committee in the General Assembly. Two of them — Tracy Kimbrell (SAS) and Robert Kaylor (Dominion) — also carry registrations with other tech or energy clients, placing Duke's roster directly at the intersection of data‑center and utility policy.

Combined, the energy sector fields 59 unique lobbyists. The clean‑energy side is not invisible: NC Sustainable Energy, Carolinas Clean Energy, and American Clean Power collectively field 15 — a counter‑weight to Duke's 11.

Chapter III · The Rule Change

The Power Bill Reduction Act, and what it unlocked.

Session Law 2025‑78 — the Power Bill Reduction Act — is the legislative backdrop for virtually every energy and data‑center debate unfolding in Raleigh today.

The law did one thing that mattered: it removed the 2030 interim carbon reduction target from North Carolina's energy policy framework. That single change enabled Duke Energy's Carolinas Resource Plan, filed after the law passed, to propose adding up to 12.3 gigawatts of fossil fuel generation by 2040.

It also explains why tech companies are now pushing clean‑energy tariffs through the NCUC. Most major tech clients have corporate climate goals more ambitious than North Carolina's state policy. When the state walked back its target, the gap widened. Tech companies are now trying to close it at the regulatory level.

When the state walked back its target, tech's climate commitments became harder to meet — and the clean‑energy tariff fight moved to the NCUC.— Lapel Analysis

Duke's rate hike request and the NCUC conference all flow from this single legislative move.

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Chapter III · Influence Map

The intersection, in one graph.

Tech clients (teal) and energy clients (ochre) connected by the five bridge lobbyists who carry registrations with both sectors. Click a node to highlight its connections.

Tech client
Energy client
Bridge lobbyist

Chapter III · Legislative Tracker

Four bills and one docket to watch.

Active and recent legislation affecting data‑center development, energy policy, and AI in North Carolina.

HB 1002

No cost recovery for data centers.

Would prohibit utilities from passing the costs of serving data centers through to residential ratepayers. Forces direct power agreements. Duke and tech are opposed.

House EnergyIntroduced

SB 266 · SL 2025‑78

Power Bill Reduction Act.

The legislative backdrop for every current energy debate. Full mechanics in Chapter III.

Enacted2025

EO 24

Trustworthy AI Executive Order.

Establishes the NC AI Leadership Council; directs agencies to inventory AI systems. Recommendations due next session could trigger 2027 legislation.

ExecutiveActive

NCUC Docket · Clean Energy Tariff

The regulatory front tech is betting on.

Google and other tech clients are lobbying the NC Utilities Commission for dedicated clean‑energy tariff structures — specialized rate options that would let large customers fund renewable generation tied to their load. Clean‑energy tariffs exist in 20+ other states; NC is behind.

NC Utilities CommissionUnder review

Colophon

About this edition.

This analysis is based on active lobbying registrations filed with the North Carolina Secretary of State and publicly available legislative and regulatory records. Lobbying data: NC Secretary of State active registrations as of April 2026. Legislative data: NC General Assembly bill tracking system. Regulatory data: NC Utilities Commission docket filings. Energy data: Duke Energy Carolinas Resource Plan and load forecasts. Data‑center data: datacentermap.com and public corporate announcements. All lobbyist‑client relationships reflect current registrations, not historical.