Duke Energy reported Friday that sales to industrial customers has begun to stabilize, another signal that better economic conditions have led to growing power consumption.
While crucial sales to big industrial companies grew 11 percent from the previous quarter, electricity demand remains depressed.
“We have a long way to go to get back to where we were before,” Jim Rogers, Duke’s chairman and CEO, said in an interview.
Profits still dropped sharply from a year ago as Duke wrote down the value of some power generation operations in the Midwest due to lower power prices and demand.
The company, based in Charlotte, N.C., says it earned $109 million, or 8 cents a share, for the quarter ended Sept. 30. That’s down from $215 million, or 17 cents a share, a year ago.
Discounting charges of $400 million, Duke said it would have made 40 cents a share compared with 33 cents per share in the year ago quarter.
