Bill aimed at securing South Carolina’s energy future haunted by 2017 V. C. Summer nuclear fiasco.
The so-called South Carolina Energy Security Act, one of the most expansive pieces of legislation to be considered by the General Assembly this year, all but collapsed in the S.C. Senate this week.
Aimed at ensuring the state has enough power to meet its future energy needs, the measure sailed through the House of Representatives, but many Senators now say the 45-thousand word bill is too wide-ranging to be considered in the final weeks of the current session.
Senate Majority leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield, said the bill should be put on hold.
“It’s important that we deal with the issue, and it’s important we get it right,” Massey said on the Senate floor Tuesday. “And because it’s important that we get it right, my recommendation is that we spend a lot of time in the fall working on this issue.”
As the Republican leader, and chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, Massey can control the Senate agenda. He and a growing number of his colleagues, Republicans and Democrats, say the shadow of the disastrous V.C Summer nuclear project in 2017 looms too large over the current energy bill.
The bill calls for streamlining the regulatory process, allowing utilities to be able to bring new power generation online quicker. It would also restructure the state Public Service Commission.
Eddie Moore, of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy at a Senate Judiciary hearing April 16 outlined the concerns of most of the groups opposed to the bill.
Moore said the bill contains numerous detail changes to the regulatory process that apply to utilities when attempting to build and operate new generating stations.
“Many of it’s (the bill) provisions are crafted to overturn specific legal precedents, or to pre- determine outcomes of (regulatory) cases, he testified.
Moore added the proposed provisions could “tilt” regulatory decisions toward utilities which could result in rate increases for their customers.
A key provision of the bill authorizes state-owned utility Santee Cooper to partner with Dominion Energy to construct a large gas-powered energy plant at Canadys in Colleton County.
The proposed 2,100-megawatt plant would produce around the same amount of electricity that those utilities had hoped to generate with the failed V.C. Summer nuclear project in Fairfield County.
In 2007, the General Assembly enacted the now infamous Base Load Review Act. That law allowed Santee Cooper and then South Carolina Electric and Gas, now Dominion, to charge ratepayers for the project while it was being built. It went under in 2017, but the utilities’ customers continue to pay for it.
The specter of that debacle is causing many lawmakers to urge caution about the proposed gas plant in Canadys.
State Sen Dick Harpootlian, D-Richland told utility CEO’s at a April 17 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that many Senators don’t want another Base Load Review Act.
“I don’t want to undo any supervision,” Harpootlian said. “These bills reduce the number of Public Service Commissioners, and change the (regulatory) process.”
Harpootlian added that if an emergency situation for more power generation exists in the state, it was created by utilities.
With the omnibus bill in trouble, some Senators are looking for a way to possibly scale it down to just authorizing Santee Cooper to pursue the Canadys plant with Dominion.
South Carolina is growing so fast that it has a critical need for additional power generation.
Duke Energy Carolinas President Mike Callahan reminded Senators of that need this week.
He said Duke, which serves thousands of customers in the Upstate and the Pee Dee, plans to double its’ generation capacity in the Carolinas over the next 15 years to meet demand.
He urged Senators to advance the energy bill.
“The current system, we built that over the last 50 years. So the pace at which we need to move to meet this demand is really un-precedented,” Callahan said.
Republican Gov. Henry McMaster said again this week that there is an urgent to need for lawmakers to pass a bill this session.
Should lawmakers fail to pass the bill this year, the bill will have to be refiled in 2025.
