Santee Cooper dropped its plans Friday to raise customers’ electric bill rates for the next two years to help pay for the failed V.C. Summer nuclear project, in which Santee Cooper has a 45% share.

Santee Cooper had planned to increase rates 3.7% for all customers in April 2018 + April 2019 to meet the state-owned company’s expenses for the project – but they negotiated a ~$1 billion agreement with Toshiba Corp. to help them cover the expenses, instead. They’d already raised rates five times ($540 million total) to help pay for the project – and if it hadn’t been shut-down, they would have needed to raise rates 41%.

Meanwhile, in SCE&G land… The state Office Regulatory Staff (ORS) has petitioned to dismiss SCE&G’s request to raise customers’ utilities rates to make up for their costs in the failed project. SCE&G (55% owner of the project) has already raised rates nine times (18%) to cover their costs for the then in-progress project – and customers will not be refunded.

4 min read / Columbia Regional Business Report