Without the ability to urgently proceed with planning and permitting new natural gas combined cycle projects, South Carolina utilities will be ill-equipped to keep up with the Palmetto State’s rapid growth and soaring energy demands, much less move forward with plans to retire coal-fired power plants. This uncertainty makes it difficult for Central Electric and other South Carolina utilities to participate in the transition to a cleaner economy while providing their members with the affordable, reliable electricity they depend on.
Central Electric Power Cooperative is a not-for-profit electric generation and transmission cooperative that purchases and delivers power to 19 electric co-ops in South Carolina. Together, these cooperatives provide power to consumer-members in each of the state’s 46 counties, many of whom live in poorly insulated homes and struggle to pay their current power bills.
South Carolina’s energy demands are projected to grow significantly in both the short and long term, in part due to the addition of electric vehicle and EV battery manufacturing plants and data centers.
Central Electric does not generate its own power. It instead buys electricity on behalf of its member co-ops. The vast majority of this power is acquired through long-term power purchase agreements with two of South Carolina’s largest utilities, Santee Cooper and Duke Energy.
Already, South Carolina utilities have struggled to supply sufficient electricity during the coldest hours of winter. During Winter Storm Elliott in December 2022, Duke Energy and Santee Cooper experienced energy shortages that required them to implement rolling blackouts at an unprecedented scale. Adding new power generation is necessary to avoid future and worsening reliability issues amid South Carolina’s explosive growth.
Santee Cooper and Duke currently rely in part on coal-fired power plants to meet the needs of their customers, including Central Electric. Both Santee Cooper and Duke plan to retire existing coal generation plants and to replace the output from those plants in part with natural gas units.
Whatever path these two utilities choose to comply with the Environmental Protection Agency’s power plant rule, they will face massive costs. These costs will be passed on to South Carolina power consumers, including Central Electric and its members.
Neither wind nor solar are realistic options to provide always-available electricity due to their intermittent nature and other challenges, including land use concerns and supply-chain delays. While carbon capture and storage might one day be helpful in reducing carbon emissions, it is not ready for deployment under the timeline required by the power plant rule. In addition, South Carolina’s geology does not support the underground storage of carbon, meaning the state’s power providers would need to build a massive pipeline to ship carbon elsewhere—at great cost to power consumers.
Without the ability to urgently proceed with planning and permitting new natural gas combined cycle projects, South Carolina utilities will be ill-equipped to keep up with the Palmetto State’s rapid growth and soaring energy demands, much less move forward with plans to retire coal-fired power plants. This uncertainty makes it difficult for Central Electric and other South Carolina utilities to participate in the transition to a cleaner economy while providing their members with the affordable, reliable electricity they depend on.