Duke Energy 2015 Annual Report Download - page 8

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\ 6 \ DUKE ENERGY
“ Safety and
operational excellence
underpin everything
else we achieve.”
Dhiaa Jamil
Executive Vice President
and President – Regulated
Generation and Transmission
Our strong balance sheet and investment-
grade credit ratings support achieving our
nancial objectives, keeping nancing
costs low and maintaining highly
competitive energy prices for customers.
inancial discipline in allocating capital
and managing expenses underpins our
ability to generate what’s next for our
customers and creates long-term value
for our investors. Daily operational
discipline is even more important.
Operating safely, reliably
and efciently
Of everything we did in 2015, I’m most
pleased by what our employees achieved
in safety and environmental performance,
following a challenging 201. We
reduced OSA-reportable employee
safety incidents by 20 percent and our
total incident case rate by 0 percent
over 201, making Duke Energy a top
safety performer in the industry.
We learned from the Dan River ash spill
of early 201. In 2015, we reduced
reportable environmental events by
more than 0 percent and made strong
progress in closing coal ash basins
in ways that protect people and the
environment. Last year, we completed
extensive site assessments at all our ash
basins and developed a comprehensive
safe closure plan. We began excavating
ash at six sites in the Carolinas and
moved nearly 1 million tons. We also
successfully resolved coal ash litigation
on multiple fronts, including with the
.S. Department of ustice.
Our diverse mix of electric generating
plants and our power delivery system
reliably met the challenging demands of
record-breaking peak load in ebruary
2015, peak summer loads in une and
historic rainfall last fall. In 2015, our
11-unit nuclear eet achieved a
combined capacity factor of .2
percent, its best mark in more than a
decade. The nuclear team’s performance
extended our record of 0-plus percent
capacity factor to 1 years. These nuclear
stations generated more than  million
megawatt-hours of clean electricity
last year, saving more than 0 million
metric tons of carbon emissions. This
consistently high performance benets
our customers and the environment.
Our fossil and hydroelectric plants also
performed well. We saw continued