South Carolina Electric & Gas (SCE&G) Co. laid out a plan to address issues related to the abandoned V.C. Summer Station nuclear construction project.

“We’ve heard our customers’ frustrations about paying for a power plant and having nothing to show for it,” says Keller Kissam, who is currently SCE&G’s president of Retail Operations and will become its president and COO on Jan. 1, 2018.

The proposal includes:

  • Rolling back residential electric rates to where they would have been in March 2015, resulting in an immediate annual reduction to rates by approximately $90 million, or 3.5 percent.
  • Requiring SCANA’s shareholders to absorb $2.9 billion of “net nuclear construction costs” through lower earnings over 50 years. The company says it will take an $810 million write-off of the nuclear investment, including a $210 million impairment charge recorded during the third quarter of 2017.
  • Buying a $180 million, 540-megawatt, natural-gas-fired power plant to add to SCE&G’s system, replacing more than 40 percent of the power that was to be provided to SCE&G from the V.C. Summer nuclear construction project. The acquisition cost would be charged to SCANA shareholders.
  • Adding roughly 100 MW of solar energy to SCE&G’s system, around a 50 percent increase in non-rooftop solar capacity.

The power plant to be acquired is the Columbia Energy Center, a combined heat and power plant that produces process steam to support a nearby manufacturing facility. The plant began operating in 2004 and employs 19 people. To date, SCE&G has been the primary customer for power produced from the plant.

The utility’s purchase of the plant is subject to negotiation of a definitive purchase agreement and to regulatory approvals, including the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Public Service Commission of South Carolina. SCE&G says it hopes to finalize the purchase later in 2017, and to obtain regulatory approval in 2018.

The Santee Cooper Board of Directors decided July 31 to end construction of Units 2 and 3 at V.C. Summer Nuclear Station in Jenkinsville, SC.

Following that decision, SCANA Corp. said that it, too, would cease construction of the two new nuclear units.

At the time, SCE&G said it reached the decision after considering the additional costs to complete the units, the uncertainty regarding the availability of production tax credits for the project, the amount of anticipated guaranty settlement payments from Toshiba Corp., as well as Santee Cooper's decision to suspend construction of the project.