CHANGES EMPHASIZE IMPORTANCE OF ENHANCING THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

Evansville, Ind. – Stemming from the upcoming retirement of a tenured executive vice president, Vectren Corporation (NYSE: VVC) Chairman, President and CEO Carl Chapman announced organizational changes today that demonstrate the company’s focus on improving the customer experience for its gas and electric customers, including ensuring continued strong public safety practices and regulatory compliance across its utility operations. Approved by the company’s Board of Directors today, these changes will be effective June 1, 2015, and align with the company’s ongoing succession planning strategy.

Jerome (Jerry) Benkert, Vectren’s executive vice president and chief administrative officer, will retire June 1. He had announced his intentions to step down last spring at which time the chief financial officer role transferred to Susan Hardwick. Benkert was Vectren’s first chief financial officer and has spent nearly 30 years with Vectren or predecessor companies. As the chief administrative officer he retained oversight of the company’s human resources, performance management and strategic sourcing, information technology and customer service departments. Those departments will now transition to other colleagues as noted below.

“Jerry has been an instrumental member of Vectren’s executive staff for nearly three decades, and his profound leadership and utility expertise have been critical to Vectren’s success,” said Chapman. “We wish him nothing but the best in his well-deserved retirement and very much appreciate his service to our company and our community.”

The customer-centric organizational changes include promotions of key individuals and added responsibilities in addition to a change of reporting structure for some key departments to enhance operational performance and internal communication.

“Customers expect their utility to provide safe, reliable energy and equally expect quality customer care,” said Chapman. “These organizational changes will ensure we’re not only meeting those needs today but are anticipating what tomorrow’s customer will expect as new technology transforms the way we interact with and/or deliver energy to our customers, and new regulations continue to drive higher-quality, more secure operations and utility infrastructure. We know the energy business will evolve dramatically over the next decade, and this team will ensure we’re keeping pace with that change.”

An overview of these changes is as follows:

• Dan Bugher, Vectren’s vice president of performance management and strategic sourcing, will move to vice president, customer experience in a newly created position where he will oversee the utility’s customer service team and the revenue management, billing, meter reading, and margin analysis departments. Bugher will report to Rick Schach, senior vice president of utility operations and president of Vectren Utility Holdings, Inc.
• Jim Francis, director of gas engineering, will be promoted to vice president of safety and system integrity, also a new position created to oversee the company’s continued focus on public safety. Francis will manage employee and contractor safety for utility operations as well as oversee all compliance-related departments for gas and electric operations. Francis will report to Schach.
• The current director of performance management, Karen Hamilton, will be promoted to succeed Bugher in the vice presidential role over performance management and strategic sourcing. Hamilton will report to Hardwick.
• The vice president of corporate communications, Chase Kelley, will become the vice president of marketing and communications where she will retain oversight of the corporate communications team and add the energy efficiency, residential and commercial sales, and the customer planning and sales business units. Kelley will remain a direct report to Schach.
• Doug Petitt, vice president of information technology and customer service and the utility’s chief information officer, becomes the chief information officer for the corporation overseeing technology and cybersecurity needs for the utility and supporting nonutility technology needs. Petitt will report to Chapman in this expanded role.
• The human resources department, which continues to report to Ellis Redd, vice president of human sources, will move into Schach’s organization.
• Robbie Sears, vice president of customer energy solutions, will assume new responsibilities related to long-term planning for the company’s utilities, which includes exploring new technologies and behind-the-meter developments in the utility space and opportunities for short and long-term utility earnings growth opportunities. Sears will retain the compressed natural gas, emerging technologies, industrial sales and economic development, and market research departments. Sears will remain a direct report to Schach.

About Vectren

Vectren Corporation (NYSE: VVC) is an energy holding company headquartered in Evansville, Ind. Vectren’s energy delivery subsidiaries provide gas and/or electricity to more than 1 million customers in adjoining service territories that cover nearly two-thirds of Indiana and west central Ohio. Vectren’s nonutility subsidiaries and affiliates currently offer energy-related products and services to customers throughout the U.S. These include infrastructure services and energy services. To learn more about Vectren, visit www.vectren.com

The companies will pay a fine and conduct community service and wetlands mitigation

WASHINGTON – Three subsidiaries of North Carolina-based Duke Energy Corporation, the largest utility in the United States, pleaded guilty today to nine criminal violations of the Clean Water Act at several of its North Carolina facilities and agreed to pay a $68 million criminal fine and spend $34 million on environmental projects and land conservation to benefit rivers and wetlands in North Carolina and Virginia.  Four of the charges are the direct result of the massive coal ash spill from the Dan River steam station into the Dan River near Eden, North Carolina, in February 2014. The remaining violations were discovered as the scope of the investigation broadened based on allegations of historical violations at the companies’ other facilities.

Under the plea agreement, both Duke Energy Carolinas and Duke Energy Progress, must certify that they have reserved sufficient assets to meet legal obligations with respect to its coal ash impoundments within North Carolina, obligations estimated to be approximately $3.4 billion.

Officials from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, EPA’s Office of Inspector General, the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division and the three U.S. Attorney’s Offices in North Carolina, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Criminal Investigations and the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) made the announcement following a plea hearing at the federal courthouse in Greenville, North Carolina today.

“Over two hundred sixteen million Americans rely on surface water as their source of drinking water. Duke Energy put that precious resource at risk in North Carolina as the result of their negligence,” said Assistant Administrator Cynthia Giles for EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. “Companies that cut corners and contaminate waters on which communities depend, as Duke did here, will be held accountable.”

“The massive coal ash spill into North Carolina’s Dan River last year was a crime and it was the result of repeated failures by Duke Energy’s subsidiaries to exercise controls over coal ash facilities,” said Assistant Attorney General John C. Cruden of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division.  “The terms of these three plea agreements will help prevent this kind of environmental disaster from reoccurring in North Carolina and throughout the United States by requiring Duke subsidiaries to follow a rigorous and independently verifiable program to ensure they comply with the law.”

“Duke Energy’s crimes reflect a breach of the public trust and a lack of stewardship for the natural resources belonging to all of the citizens of North Carolina,” said U.S. Attorney Thomas G. Walker for the Eastern District of North Carolina.  “The massive release at the Dan River coal ash basin revealed criminal misconduct throughout the state — conduct that will no longer be tolerated under the Judgment imposed by the court today.”

On Feb. 20, 2015, the three U.S. Attorney’s Offices in North Carolina filed separate criminal bills of information in their respective federal courts, alleging violations of the Clean Water Act at the following Duke facilities: the Dan River steam station (Rockingham County), the Cape Fear steam electric plant (Chatham County), the Asheville steam electric generating plant (Buncombe County), the H.F. Lee steam electric plant (Wayne County), and the Riverbend steam station (Gaston County).  The alleged violations included unlawfully failing to maintain equipment at the Dan River and Cape Fear facilities and unlawfully discharging coal ash and/or coal ash wastewater from impoundments at the Dan River, Asheville, Lee and Riverbend facilities.

As part of their plea agreements, Duke Energy Business Services LLC, Duke Energy Carolinas LLC and Duke Energy Progress Inc. will pay a $68 million criminal fine and a total $24 million community service payment to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation for the benefit of the riparian environment and ecosystems of North Carolina and Virginia.  The companies will also provide $10 million to an authorized wetlands mitigation bank for the purchase of wetlands or riparian lands to offset the long-term environmental impacts of its coal ash basins.  In addition, they will pay restitution to the federal, state and local governments that responded to the Dan River spill and be placed on a period of supervised probation for five years.

Duke’s subsidiaries operating 18 facilities in five states, including 14 in North Carolina, will also be required to develop and implement nationwide and statewide environmental compliance programs to be monitored by an independent court appointed monitor and be regularly and independently audited.  Results of these audits will be made available to the public to ensure compliance with environmental laws and programs.  The companies’ compliance will be overseen by a court-appointed monitor who will report findings to the court and the U.S. Probation Office as well as ensuring public access to the information.

Approximately 108 million tons of coal ash are currently held in coal ash basins owned and operated by the defendants in North Carolina.  Duke Energy Corporation subsidiaries also operate facilities with coal ash basins in South Carolina (approximately 5.99 million tons of coal ash), Kentucky (approximately 1.5 million tons of coal ash), Indiana (approximately 35.6 million tons of coal ash) and Ohio (approximately 5.9 million tons of coal ash).

The companies must also meet the obligations imposed under federal and state law to excavate and close coal ash impoundments at the Asheville, Dan River, Riverbend, and Sutton facilities.

Additionally, at the insistence of the United States, the holding company Duke Energy Corporation has guaranteed the payment of the monetary penalties and the performance of the nationwide and statewide environmental compliance plans.

The criminal investigation was conducted by the EPA-CID, EPA-Region 4, EPA-OIG, IRS-CI and NC SBI with assistance from the F B I and the Department of Defense Criminal Investigative Service.