Yeah, every time I see one of these complaints about Duke, they're always posting houses that are smaller than mine with allegedly less use of power than my house, then post a power price that's twice what I'm paying Duke. Something is up with their houses or HVAC, and they always staunchly refuse any notion that it could be any cause other than the greedy power company.

By comparison, I have a 5-BR, 2800-sf house, so it's bigger than the OP's. I certainly keep my AC lower than 77 when I'm home, and turn on the heat when it's cold, so I use more energy for heating and air than the OP. But the highest power bill I've seen this hot-ass year was $318, almost $30 cheaper than the OP's price before the 40% hike. Something doesn't make sense there.

Either the OP's house has some terrible insulation, or a badly inefficient A/C, or he has a big energy consumption need that he's not acknowledging. Or else he's got a neighbor stealing his power.

Hell, I just went to the Duke website to see what rate they offer for me on the budget billing plan to compare. $195 a month. Again, that's for a bigger house than OP with more energy usage than the OP claims, same program with the same power company. Barely more than 1/3 of what the OP's getting charged.

But he'll obstinately ignore all of this and continue to believe that the only thing wrong is the greedy power company screwing the man, while paying double or maybe even triple what he should be owing given his house size and alleged usage.