The state of North Carolina has set a renewable energy standard that requires all of the state’s utilities to meet a minimum percentage customers’ electricity needs with clean, renewable energy by 2021. Duke Energy, one of the largest electric power companies in the United States, is taking the first steps toward meeting this goal, which for investor-owned utilities is 12.5 percent.

On a local morning show on Tuesday, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based company showcased a portion of the first phase of the Duke distributed solar generation program. The idea is that, rather than building a single, centralized solar power plant, it may be a cost-effective — and perhaps a better use of space — to install a number of smaller distributed generated sites across the state. These sites could be rooftop and/or ground-mounted panels on or around houses, schools, offices or warehouses whose structures are best tailored to handle a solar energy system.

Duke’s approach is similar Southern California Edison’s solar rooftop program; under both initiatives, the systems are owned not by the property owner or other third party, but by the utility itself.

By rolling out its $50 million distributed solar project, Duke aims to eventually own and operate across the state 10 megawatts (MW) of solar energy capacity — enough potential oomph to power 1,300 homes.

The first phase of the program was completed in April 2010 and has the potential to produce 4.3 MW annually. It includes installations atop four large nonresidential customers that were chosen back in 2009.

While no fixed date has been announced for the completion of the program, the remaining two phases are currently in progress.