PRESS RELEASE
Date: September 28, 2018
From: South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce
Subject: SCE&G/Dominion call for raising rates by 7 percent
Contact: Frank Knapp, President/CEO, 803-252-5733 (w), 803-600-6874 (c),
fknapp@scsbc.org
SCE&G/Dominion call for raising rates by 7 percent
State regulators say rates should be lowered another 5%
Columbia, SC—SCE&G ratepayers recently benefited from a 15 percent electric rate rollback thanks to actions by the SC Legislature and Public Service Commission (PSC). According to prefiled testimony this week by the Office of Regulatory Staff (ORS), SCE&G rates should be rolled back another 5 percent for a total of a 20 percent rollback from pre-abandonment levels.
SCE&G/Dominion’s counter proposal is to actually increase the electric rates for consumers by 7 percent from current rates calling it “the best option for SCE&G customers.”
The PSC will hold a hearing starting November 1 to decide how much customers will pay of the SCE&G construction costs for the now abandoned nuclear plants in Fairfield County. At that hearing the PSC is also to decide whether Dominion Energy should be approved to acquire SCANA/SCE&G.
“Clearly the best option for SCE&G customers is not for the PSC to accept Dominion’s conditions for purchasing SCANA/SCE&G which would result in an increase in rates by 7 percent,” said Frank Knapp, Jr, President and CEO of the South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce. “Unfortunately, the PSC will let Dominion be a party to this hearing in an effort to convince the Commission that the consumers will be better off having a 7 percent rate hike than a 5 percent rate reduction in current rates.”
“We agree that SCE&G should not be allowed to recover any of the nuclear construction costs after March of 2015, the date ORS asserts that SCE&G knew that the project would be years behind schedule and billions over budget yet did not inform the PSC,” said Knapp who is also a pro se intervenor in this PSC hearing.
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The South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce is a statewide advocacy organization founded in 2000. With over 10,000 small business and entrepreneur supporters, it has successfully worked to make South Carolina more small business friendly in areas such as healthcare, taxation, regulation, worker training, energy/conservation, workers’ compensation and economic development.