Santee Cooper proposed new rates opposed by clean energy and small business groups

Charleston, SC—The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) and the South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce (SCSBCC) are recommending significant changes to the proposed Santee Cooper 2025 Rate Increase.  The groups say that the rate proposal lacks transparency, is unfair to the residential and small business classes, will confuse customers seeking to manage peak energy demand, and fails to fairly compensate solar customers with battery back-up for supplying energy to the grid during peak periods. Santee Cooper provides power to approximately two million customers directly or through the state’s 19 electric cooperative and the cities of Bamberg and Georgetown.

“We support the concept of time-based rates, but believe the Santee Cooper proposal, as written, will lead to customer confusion and consternation without yielding the intended cost-management benefits,” said Eddy Moore, Director of Decarbonization at the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy based in Charleston. “Over half of a small residential or commercial customer’s bill could be triggered by a single hour or even half hour of energy usage.”

“Santee Cooper’s small business customers deserve a much better plan that treats them fairly, reduces the demand for a new gas plant, and keeps the rate increases as low as possible,” said Frank Knapp Jr., President and CEO of the SCSBCC. “We have intervened in 11 investor-owned rate cases in front of the SC Public Service Commission since 2002 and this proposal would be firmly rejected by the PSC if it had jurisdiction, which it probably should have. Importantly, this proposal does not adequately reduce the need for the requested new Santee Cooper/Dominion Energy gas plant that will dramatically increase the bills of regulated utility customers. We’re calling on Santee Cooper to modify its approach and if it doesn’t, we hope the SC legislature will take action to protect Santee Cooper customers from this poorly designed and non-transparent proposal.”

Problems identified:

• Starting April 1, 2025, Santee Cooper proposes that residential customers will have a 8.7% base rate increase plus an estimated 7% increase due to increased fuel charges, for a total increase approaching 16%.  Plus, there apparently will be an undisclosed Cook Settlement rider added to the 16% rate increase.  The actual impact on residential the customer’s bill could be well over a 16% increase.
• Santee Cooper says that overall rates will increase on average 4.9% yet their projections indicate a revenue increase of 17% without a clear explanation.
• Santee Cooper is keeping certain information about how it arrived at its overall proposed rate increase secret from the public, thus making it impossible for the public or consumer organizations to fully evaluate the rate proposal.
• Santee Cooper information indicates that small businesses will pay the utility 83% more next March ($6.8 million) compared to February ($3.7 million) causing rate shock due to the unexpected business expense.
• Santee Cooper wants for the first time to put in place demand charges ($10 per kW for residential and $17 per kW for small business) that are confusing, not logically consistent, will not be as effective in encouraging residential and small businesses to reduce energy use at peak demand times as other rate approaches, and will unfairly increase electric bills.

Recommendations:

• Santee Cooper should provide a clear overall picture of the rate and revenue increases that it plans to impose in the near-term, such that customers can understand what the year-over-year increases in rates and revenues will be for each retail and wholesale customer class and what costs drive those increases.
• Santee Cooper should not impose Time of Use (TOU) rates on small customers through a demand charge.  Rather, it should pursue reasonably-based TOU energy charges that target times and seasons that are actual system peaks, leaving all other non-customer-specific costs to be recovered on a per-kilowatt-hour basis that enables and facilitates energy conservation.  Also, customer fixed charges should be reduced to be in line with neighboring utilities, based upon the cost of billing services.
• Santee Cooper should reasonably and fairly enlist the cooperation of its retail customers in meeting energy and capacity needs by revising its distributed generation tariffs to include TOU-based compensation for solar and battery customers within a monthly netting construct. Santee Cooper should seek the services of a proven aggregator to maximize the growth and management of these customer resources.

###

About the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy
Since 1985, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy has worked to promote responsible and equitable energy choices to ensure clean, safe, and healthy communities throughout the Southeast. Learn more at cleanenergy.org.

About the South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce
The South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce (SCSBCC) is a statewide advocacy organization with over 5,000 small business and entrepreneur supporters working to make state government more small business friendly. The Small Business Chamber is both non-partisan and non-profit. We do not endorse candidates for public office nor contribute to political campaigns.