Roofing in Santee, SC

Santee Cooper’s more than 200,000 residential customers will see their rates go up next year after the state utility’s board of directors approved an electric rate hike under a rate structure that encourages customers to avoid using certain appliances at certain hours of day.

This is the first time rates have increased for the state agency since 2017. The agency agreed to a rate freeze in 2020 as part of a settlement agreement in a lawsuit over the failed V.C. Summer nuclear plant construction project.

The rate increase applies to about 220,000 customers, of which 205,000 are residential and commercial customers in Horry, Georgetown and Berkeley counties. The rate increases does not apply to wholesale customers such as the electric cooperatives.

The average residential customer who uses 1,000 kwh a month, could pay $10.72 more a month. But if the residential customer is able to adjust when they use certain appliances, that increase could only be $5.44 a more a month.

A Santee Cooper customer who uses 1,000 kilowatt hours a month, currently pays $115.69 a month.

The new rates go into effect in 2025 and customers will see the higher prices in their April bills.

Under the new rate structure, customers will be charged more for electricity used during peak hours. For winter months of November through March, the peak usage hours would be between 6 and 9 a.m. For the summer months of April through October peak time would be between 3 and 6 p.m.

Through its peak demand charge, Santee Cooper wants to encourage customers not to use high-energy appliances, such as ovens, dishwashers, dryers, water heaters and heat pumps during those peak hours. The utility wants to encourage customers to preheat and precool their homes outside of the peak times and use smart thermostats to set times to shift use.

Santee Cooper customers also will start seeing an adverting campaign in February reminding them of the new rates. Letters will go to customers in January.

Customers will be able look at the monthly energy usage on Santee Cooper’s website.

Santee Cooper staff have worked on the new rates since June 2023 and in recent months received public input.

After feedback, the electric utility decided to lower the demand charge and increase the energy charge to soften the impact of the of the rate increase.

“We had some questions about how our customers were going to respond to this rate, and how they were going to be able to understand what the rate would do to their bill,” said Michael Smith, the director of Budget, Billing and Pricing for Santee Cooper.

Santee Cooper has had the same rates since 2017, despite rising costs, the utility has said.

During that time, both Duke Energy and Dominion have had rate increases approved by the state’s Public Service Commission.

In order to control costs during that time period, Santee Cooper has refinanced debt in July to save $100 million, held off on $70 million in capital expenses and $30 million in operations and maintenance, and reduced its employee headcount through natural attrition by not replacing employees who left for other jobs or retired.

The State

803-771-8450

Joseph Bustos is a state government and politics reporter at The State. He’s a Northwestern University graduate and previously worked in Illinois covering government and politics. He has won reporting awards in both Illinois and Missouri. He moved to South Carolina in November 2019 and won the Jim Davenport Award for Excellence in Government Reporting for his work in 2022.

Two groups are urging Santee Cooper to delay a vote on its first electric rate increase in seven years to address what they called "serious flaws" in the new pricing plan.

The S.C. Small Business Chamber of Commerce and the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy expressed their concerns and requested "a pause" in the process in a joint letter dated Dec. 3. They addressed it to former lawmaker Peter McCoy, chairman of the state-owned power and water utility.

The Santee Cooper board is scheduled to vote Monday on the new rate structure that calls for an average 8.7 percent increase for residential bills.

It will take effect April 1 if passed.

Business

The two groups said Santee Cooper "may be preparing to approve" the proposed rates "without more fully addressing ... concerns and suggested changes" from the Regulatory Assistance Project, an independent group the utility hired to help evaluate its pricing.

"We are concerned that there has been no public indication in the record that the board or management of Santee Cooper has given serious consideration to RAP’s suggested alternatives," they said.

S.C. Small Business Chamber CEO Frank Knapp said the outside consultant "provided examples of newer and better designs that are fairer to these customers and allows the state utility to achieve the revenue increase it needs."

The main point of contention is a "demand charge" designed to encourage customers to curtail their electricity usage at peak demand periods.

The chamber and the energy alliance said the proposed billing option is confusing and convoluted and "will seriously impact" households served by Santee Cooper.

“Demand charges in general have additional complexity for small consumers to understand and properly manage compared with most forms of ... rates, including time-of-use rates,” they wrote.

They also pointed to a study that Santee Cooper used that found 25 percent of household accounts "could see their bills increase 20 percent or more when the proposed rates go into effect” even though “the overall residential customer class is slated for an 8.7 percent increase.”

In addition, they said, small businesses would be hurt because, unlike residential customers, they're not being offered a "time-of-use" billing alternative.

The Moncks Corner-based power provider responded to the two groups in a written statement this week.

"Santee Cooper conducted a comprehensive and transparent rate adjustment process, including an extensive public comment period that these organizations participated in," the utility said. "All appropriately provided comments, including theirs, are currently being reviewed by the board ahead of its meeting next week. This late letter to the board is nothing more than an attempted end run against a process that is spelled out in state law."

Santee Cooper announced in June that it needs to raise electric bills to offset a projected $40 million revenue deficit next year, partly caused by inflation. It then conducted a series of public meetings.

Last month, Santee Cooper announced that it was revising parts of its original proposal.

Among the changes is a 20 percent reduction in the peak demand charge for "general" residential customers, who had complained the “penalty” was excessive. It would be offset with a 15 percent price increase for electricity used at any other time.

For all other residential customers, who are charged based on when they consume power, their higher-cost billing periods would be cut to three hours twice a day from four. In exchange, they would pay 7 percent to 15 percent more for power, depending on the time.

The peak-usage windows uniform for all household customers would be 6-9 a.m. from November through March and 3-6 p.m. between April and October.

The utility also has made several revisions to its commercial and industrial price sheets.

Still Here is a monthly column highlighting the wild and rural places in South Carolina

I wanted something new. The holidays and the New Year were over, Valentine’s Day was around the corner and we’d reached a point in the marriage where another evening of the flowers and chocolate or even a nice dinner out seemed bland.

I wanted something sweeter.

And that’s when I started doing some research and learned about Santee State Park. Although not as well-known as the most frequently visited Hunting Island State Park on the coast or the spectacular mountain pinnacle setting of Table Rock State Park, Santee sits along the edge of Lake Marion, the largest lake in South Carolina.

Santee features over 150 campsites and RV hookups, as well as 30 cabins — 10 located on a pier over the lake and 20 along the lakeshore. It was the idea of staying in a cabin — which also allowed us to bring our dog, Lenny Bruce, along — that beckoned to me.

It was a surprise. She was expecting an outing since I’d asked her to take the day off work, but she wasn’t expecting to be out in the woods, close to the water, surrounded by tall cypress trees, Spanish moss and dwarf palmettos — and great Wi-Fi so she could still work remotely for the rest of the week.

One of the best parts of traveling in South Carolina is driving the back roads. Whether approaching Santee from Columbia or Charleston, each a little more than an hour from the park, the route necessitates leaving the highways and meandering along at a slower pace, paying closer attention to the road.

And each other.

This is the appeal of nature at its core: not knowing what will be around the bend.

While at the same time, feeling deeply protected and watched by the presence and beauty of something larger and beyond our understanding.

Like love. Like marriage.

The cabin was beautiful — spacious and comfortable with a full kitchen and stunning views of the lake and the moon rising at night.

It made me realize how important it is to leave home from time to time. When we’re home, we’re constantly thinking about tasks we must do, or memories that come through — and in a place that is spare and clean, with just a few personal items and a wide view, our minds can rest and open in a good way.

Like Congaree, Santee is named for the original inhabitants of the land. Connected to the Siouan-speaking tribes of the Great Plains, the Santee people settled along the banks of the Santee River and had a population of 3,000 at European contact in 1600.

In 1800, the nation’s first summit canal was built, connecting the Santee and Cooper Rivers so goods could be carried between Columbia and Charleston. The canal was used until the 1950s when railroads became the easier, cheaper way of transport, and was named to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

The landscape shifted again in 1934 when, under President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, $31 million in federal funds (five times South Carolina’s state budget at the time) created the Santee Cooper Hydroelectric and Navigation Project. The damming and diversion of the Santee and Cooper Rivers created Lake Marion and Lake Moultrie, under which the remains of the mill town of Ferguson, abandoned in 1915, still lie.

Ironically, since the dams create electric power, the lack of city lights across the area allows the moon to glow even more brightly when reflected on the lake’s waters at night.

This feeling of the nearness of nature affects us, I think, in ways that are a healing balance to the domination of the artificial and constructed in the human world.

How every sunrise is an absolute miracle.

How everything is a combination of the beauty of light and shadow.

And how shadow can mean “companion,” as in “my shadow.”

We reflected on this while walking with our dog along the more than 10 miles of hiking trails in the park. (He actually ran most of the time, so full of joy at the soft paths and new smells and sensations.)

We need this joy, we realized, as humans, too.

We hiked, and we rested, we read, she played guitar and sang, we watched the sun set and the moon rise and the sun rise again over the water.

It felt like a new beginning. It felt like nature and magic and music and laughter. It felt like falling in love again.

It felt sweet.

It felt like love that is still here.

Last Christmas, fire destroyed one of Santee’s most popular restaurants, Lone Star Bar-B-Que. Now, they are returning with a new look.

SANTEE, S.C. — On Christmas day last year, Santee's Lone Star Bar-B-Que and Mercantile burned to the ground.

This week, owner Rachael Henderson says they are reopening, but with a new style.

“Originally our plan was to build a building, but with the economy the way that it is and the prices have gone up so much on everything, just to do a small building was a lot," Henderson said. "So me and my husband were talking, let's get a food trailer and see how that works. And if it works out well, we can build as we work. So whatever we make, we can put back into the building fund to build another building.”

RELATED: Owners of Lone Star BBQ optimistic about return after hundreds gather for fundraiser

The current Lone Star Bar-B-Que food truck is parked next to their original location.

Jane Powell from the Santee Cooper Country Visitor’s Center says the restaurant was a big pull for tourism in Orangeburg County.

“It’s great for tourism, it just has such a great reputation and people do come here and they ask us all the time, 'Where can we go eat, we want to eat like locals,'" Powell said. "That's important when you're visiting this area, and I mean, we all do that. So Lone Star is one of our “you must go to” when you’re in the Santee Cooper Country area.”

RELATED: Orangeburg county BBQ celebrates milestone

Lone Star Bar-B-Que's owners are asking guests to be patient as they navigate their new space.

“Please have some patience with us, this is new for us, too. So, we're having to figure out how we can capitalize on the most food in a little place and still make sure that we can serve the customers efficiently because we don’t have as much room," Henderson said. "We went from 7200 sq. feet to a food trailer, but we’re trying to do the best that we can. We love the barbecue business. We love our community. We want to be there, so were doing what we can to start with.”

Lone Star Bar-B-Que's food truck will officially reopen on at 11 a.m. on Friday, November 1, 2024.

Recently, Santee Cooper proposed a brand-new electricity rate structure for residential customers in Myrtle Beach, SC which is to go into effect in April 2025. The proposed-rate structure includes a new mandatory “demand” charge, which the Utility argues will incentivize residents to reduce their electric load between the hours of 3pm-6pm in the Summer and 6am-9am in the Winter.

Their publicized literature states that a resident will on average only pay 8.7% more in 2025. As an energy consultant for two decades, I have opposed their proposed rate increases.

Santee Cooper

First, the published impact from the Santee Cooper rate-increase of 8.7% far underestimates the true projected annualrate increase for the average residential customer. A closer look at their data, shows that the distribution of rates is negatively skewed. This means the actual projected annualized rate increase for residential customers is expected to be between 14.45%-21.56% (i.e. about 20%).

The 8.7% number that Santee Cooper released, does not appear to convert the increase impact to an “annualized number” and instead only reflects the months March 2025 – December 2025. This may be misleading. Residents should know that in reality, they could foresee energy bills, with increases closer to 20%. This is significant.

Second, the current Santee Cooper proposed rate increase may not be in line with statutory goals of S.C. Code Ann. § 58-31- 710, (a) Mission – to limit price increases to less than inflation. However, a 20% energy-price increase in 2025 appears far outside of that mandate. The local economy is still recovering from the shock-waves of Covid and other labor and supply shortages. Residents and businesses have already been hit hard with a rising cost of doing business and making a living.

As we enter an election cycle, a number one priority on many voters minds is the economy and inflation. With a foreseeable 20% jump in their 2025 energy bills, local residents and small businesses should be concerned about a sudden inflationary spike, which may ripple through the local economy.

Source: Appendix A, Santee Cooper Rate Increase 2024.

Source: https://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet

This energy cost inflation could also cause a ripple effect to the local economy, as families would have less personal income and spending power, and less money to spend in local businesses. This in turn would slow down the local economy. It would also harm a large portion of the residents who are retirees many of whom live on fixed incomes.

This will also make the region uncompetitive on a national playing field. The Federal Reserve has also signaled a desire to reduce inflation to 2%. The existing Santee Cooper proposal would do the opposite – and instead would exacerbate regional inflation and create an energy spike of 20% to residents and small businesses. This could not just harm this region locally from competing on a national level, but also lead to declined residential growth.

Myrtle Beach has experienced record population growth in the last four years and has relied on favorable economic environments (such as in rates, water, and housing) to attract both investment and migration to the state. Adding a 20% energy-inflationary impact to 2025 could undermine the local economy, and simply put – hurt small businesses, as well as families and residents in the community. More thought should also be given to the impacts of adverse inflation, and a potential shrinking of the local-GDP. This 20% rate-spike increase also runs the real risk of slowing down the Myrtle Beach economy and harming its economic viability and competitiveness.

Third, the proposal appears contrary to other national standards as in the majority of the states across the nation, and Public Utilities Commissions have routinely rejected mandatory demand-charges for its residential customers instead making them optional (e.g. Georgia Power).,, Widely conducted research, including from the Regulatory Assistance Project has also shown that Demand Charges do not help the local economy and thus have not been forced upon the residential class.

Source: https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/research/financial-priorities-2024-election/ Source: https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/feds-williams-inflation-target-critical-achieving-stable-prices-2024-05-04/ Source: https://www.southcarolinapublicradio.org/sc-news/2023-08-22/myrtle-beach-named-nations-fastest-growing-city-again Source: Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative: Rate Design: What Do Consumers Want and Need Source: Acadia Center Charge Without a Cause Source: Synapse Energy Caught in a Fix

Therefore, one solution is to make the demand-charges optional in alignment with other states. Families, residents and local small businesses work hard enough, and have already suffered through high inflation since Covid. Residents should be allowed to opt-out of these “demand-charges” and instead pay a modest inflationary increase, on their regular utility bills. This is also more in line with the principle of gradualism.

While the Board has yet to vote on the rates, fair consideration should be given to alternatives to the proposals – for example (a) remove the mandatory demand-charges for residential customers; (b) allow residential customers the ability to “opt-out” and revert to their original billing with a modest inflationary increase; (c) use a more gradual basis of implementing demand-pricing rate structure changes, such as a $1.50 demand charge (not $10) and keep the original base rate the same; (d) adopt a Winter Demand or Summer Demand that coincide only with extreme weather conditions, to actually impact peak load.

Let’s not hurt the local GDP and economy – and let’s help local businesses and residents in this region thrive. A full copy of the report opposing the rates can be found here.

Samantha S. Kumaran

Samantha S. Kumaran. resides in Carolina Forest, S.C.

President and CEO

Timetrics Risk

Leadership Council of the National Small Business Association​​

www.nsba.biz