♪ > Welcome to a This Week In South Carolina Special Report I'm Gavin Jackson.

As South Carolina enjoys the title, of the fastest growing state in the country, it currently also has its share of growing pains, as we've discussed over the past few months, when it comes to transportation infrastructure and concerning health care trends, just to name a few.

This episode is one of two looking at the growing demand for electricity in our state.

Residential, commercial and industrial demands have utilities in a major build cycle for new gas-fired plants to produce thousands of megawatts along with solar and battery storage, and even looking to stretch the life span of coal-fired plants before their final retirements.

Utilities are also eyeing new nuclear capacity, including the possibility of restarting construction on two nuclear reactors at V.C.

Summer Nuclear Station.

We will explore the future of nuclear and specifically the demand of data centers in our next episode.

Well, we spoke with the heads of the three major energy utilities in the state.

Keller Kissam at Dominion Energy, Tim Pearson at Duke Energy, and Jimmy Staton at state owned Santee Cooper.

Each of their interviews could easily be their own show, and the full interviews will be on the SCETV News YouTube page.

Together, we see a more cohesive picture of the current energy landscape by talking to them.

We spoke with Keller Kissam at the Columbia Energy Center right outside of the capital city in Gaston.

We even got a tour of the 22-year-old plant, and what goes into producing close to 700 megawatts of electricity there.

Our interview came just days after winter storms froze the state for several days in early February.

> We were running everything that we had.

Coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydro, pumped storage, solar, when the sun was out.

And we were, oh, we were thankful to have it from that standpoint.

But all of those are energy sources.

We were even running hydro out of Lake Murray.

Lake Murray, we probably dropped Lake Murray about, eight inches to a foot in elevation.

And it was because, to generate power.

Now there are a lot of homes and businesses there that are like, "Well, why are you dropping the lake?

Come on, we need to be filling it up.

We want water in the lake."

And it's like, "Hey, that was built back in the 1940s to generate power.

And we still expect it to generate power."

Now we try to be mindful of shoreline management and aesthetics and everything.

It's there to generate power.

And when you need it, and your customers demand it.

Okay.

It's all hands on deck, and it's running everything that you've got in order to make that, to meet that instantaneous load that occurs all the time.

It's a symbiotic grid.

The key word is balancing authority.

There are three utilities in South Carolina to have balancing authority, responsibility of major utilities.

Duke Energy, Santee Cooper and Dominion Energy South Carolina.

So they have federal regulations that empower them to operate that balancing authority and balance that demand versus the generation.

And keep it in sync every minute of every day.

Gavin> Yeah.

So, I mean, don't go boating on Lake Murray in the middle of a, you know, winter storm.

[laughter] Keller> Stay away from the intake tower.

How bout that?

Gavin> Keller, to that point when we're talking about this plant, you're trying to replicate this plant in some ways down in Canadys.

It's supposed to be about five billion dollars, which we're talking about cost.

It's double the cost there.

Tell me what you're trying to do down there and how that's going to balance this power load here.

Keller> Well, first of all, you ask me the chicken and egg.

<Yeah> Well, that's kind of an egg that we've got a plant down there in incubate and we've got to get it going.

So it's in the incubation stage right now.

We have got to have more energy in South Carolina, because we will not be able to meet the population migration that is occurring.

And then you can forget about having, you know... major economic development projects that kind of change the entire landscape of a region.

And so you've got BMW in the upstate.

You've got Boeing down at Charleston.

You got Boeing with a great expansion going on right now.

Those airplanes are literally, no pun intended, taking off across the world.

And we got to be able to serve it.

They're an important customer of ours.

And now you have Scout here in the Midlands.

And, you got to continue to be able to attract those types of industries, manufacturing, because that's what really creates jobs and that's what really gives South Carolinians opportunity.

So that's what it's really about on a high level.

So down at Canadys, we're number one trying to increase power.

The other thing we're trying to do is make it a flexible unit.

And that's what natural gas gives you.

It's an all of the above energy strategy and Canadys, actually believe it or not, allows us to, bring more solar on to our system because of its flexibility to track that solar, which is so important.

And then at the same time, we're going back into a community that we left before in Colleton County.

Now, we still serve gas and electric customers there, but it creates job opportunities for the folks in Colleton County.

It's in the northern part of the county, away from the ACE Basin, which is important.

And it is an already established brownfield industrial site.

It's been cleaned up and it's a perfect place to drop a typical unit such as this, there.

We also have a great partner in Santee Cooper.

You'd be amazed, but we have 20 transmission interconnections with Santee Cooper.

Their system overlays our system.

<Mhm> And it's amazing.

Physics makes us partners every day, but also the relationship.

And Jimmy Staton and the folks down there, great people.

And we're going to make it happen.

Gavin> When can we see that coming online?

What's the status with that?

Keller> Probably 2031.

Gavin> And when it comes online in 2031, how many megawatts are we talking about?

And will that already be spoken for, essentially?

Keller> It'll be 2,000 megawatts, a thousand to Santee Cooper, a thousand to us.

And what it will actually do is part of it will be spoken for because we're going to continue to have this growth up until 2031.

I don't know what economic development prospects will come, but yeah, it'll, it's all about managing those expectations from that standpoint.

Gavin> You know, what is the demand forecast right now for energy in South Carolina?

Keller> I wish I knew.

And a lot of people say, "well, how can you not know?"

I can tell you, that we can put facts and figures to say that our residential growth is like 2 percent.

We can talk about a Scout Motors coming in.

We can talk about our Project Dawson which is Google coming in.

The one data center that we are beginning to serve.

But at the same time, look at the weather we had over the last two weeks.

And the thing of it is, is we can't control... where people put their thermostat.

We can't control how many lights they have on in their rooms.

We can't control whether they have their washing machine or dryer on during these times.

But there is one thing about it.

We have an obligation to serve it, whatever it is.

And therefore, we have to serve it instantaneously.

But we have 20-year planning horizons because you don't build one of these overnight.

You don't go pick it up on the shelf at Costco.

It takes a long period of time to bring these components in, to have a site and to be able to construct it.

But, the South Carolina economy is growing by leaps and bounds.

You know, I don't know if that's a good thing or not.

You know, I'm a native South Carolinian, and I see just tremendous amount of change.

Can't control it.

But I do know, that it is our job to be able to serve it.

Gavin> Mhm.

Can you keep up with that 2 percent growth versus maybe the unknown factors about the bigger economic development projects that come to the state.

I mean, I know you're talking about 20-year planning horizons, but, I don't know were we thinking about data centers 20 years ago the way that we're thinking about them now.

Keller> No, we weren't.

We were thinking manufacturing.

You know, a lot has changed, from a generation standpoint.

I mean, we were thinking about building two nuclear reactors at V.C.

Summer to go with Unit One that's there, and we know the result of that.

So, you have to play a little bit of catch up because the economy kept marching.

Now you had some lulls in it, but it's really taken off now.

And the population growth is just tremendous.

And a lot of people focus on Charleston.

But our fastest growing county has been Jasper.

And then you look at everything the Army is doing at Fort Gordon over in Augusta.

And a lot of those people are wanting to live on this side of the river in North Augusta.

So a tremendous amount of growth there.

And get on 378 and try to get to Lexington in an afternoon and look at everybody that's moved over into that community and all of the development going on as far out as Gilbert, now.

And so all of that is a part of this as far as this continuous growth.

And there's an article, one article after another, that South Carolina has had more influx of people moving here than anywhere else.

Gavin> Dominion says energy demand is set to increase by 25 percent by 2044.

The company has also spent some 1.4 billion dollars on its system since 2023.

And last December, it filed for a rate increase of 12.7 percent for residential customers, as well as other rate increases for commercial and industrial users.

The Public Service Commission is currently seeking input on the rate increase, and it could approve the full rate, or a reduced one that could be agreed upon this spring.

Keller> I will tell you, the biggest concern I have is affordability.

It truly is.

And people are gonna say, "Ah, no you don't.

The more you spend, the more you make."

That's what they say about utilities.

Gavin> Well rates never go down, they only go up.

How do you, how do you combat that?

Keller> And, you can't... because we have to continue to make investments in our system.

Because the only thing that's worse about not being able to get in and lower rates is to not have reliable service to our customers.

Any survey we've ever done, they say, number one thing, "keep my lights on, keep my lights on, keep my lights on."

And then the next thing is "affordability."

And so those two things are not polar opposites as people think.

<Mhm> But if you really look at electric prices and how they have increased- And I know people say, "well, you're a monopoly, we don't have a choice."

Well, that's probably a good thing because if you had a choice, can you imagine- How many people out there have the fiber optic companies running all through their... their neighborhoods competing against each other?

That duplicity of service and lines and poles and things of that nature, that wouldn't be in anybody's best interest from that standpoint.

So it's a system that has worked.

It's served the United States very, very well.

And I believe it will continue to do so.

And as a vertical utility, you've just got to make those investments.

Gavin> Jimmy Staton, President and CEO of the state owned utility Santee Cooper, said the system is planning to nearly double its capacity in the coming years to meet demand.

And it's not the only one.

We spoke with him at the V.C.

Summer Nuclear Station control room simulator at the plant in Jenkinsville.

While major industrial power consuming projects don't just come online overnight, the utility always wants to be ready for the next big one.

> If they said "I need it tomorrow," I would have a problem, I would have a problem.

But our job is to facilitate economic development for the state.

And so we have been doing that... in what I think of as all of the above approach.

So we're optimizing what we have first and foremost.

So we are, we're working at, on our Rainey plant, which is a natural gas-fired generating station.

We're going to, we're going to be able to add about 200 megawatts there, without increasing the emissions rate.

Just by installing a steam turbine.

So we've already taken that step.

We've acquired two new, gas-fired generation stations.

Small... we're going to locate them at our Winyah facility.

So it's on a preexisting site.

That should bring another 100 megawatts.

We bought a small natural gas plant in Cherokee County.

That's another 100 megawatts.

And then by 2027, we expect to have a 300 megawatt battery, station in place at our Jeffries station.

Again, everything that we're trying to do is we're being thoughtful and innovative and ensuring that we utilize our existing resources and just optimize them.

So if you look at that, that's about 600 megawatts of capacity that, we will be able to bring on between now and 2027.

<Mhm> Beyond that, we're planning for big resources.

We're working, we're collaborating with our friends at Dominion to build a 2,200 megawatt natural gas-fired facility in Canadys.

And then we are partnering with Brookfield, here at V.C.

Summer to, to build another probably closer to 2,200 megawatts of... nuclear generation for the future.

So, if you think about that, that's over 5,000 megawatts.

<Yeah> That's effectively doubling the size of Santee Cooper, in ten years.

What it took us 90 years, to build.

So, we think we're in a good position to continue to meet the growth in the state.

But again, I would, I would finish with... if you need it tomorrow, if you need 2, 3, 400 megawatts tomorrow, I'm probably, a bit challenged.

If you're willing to work with us- Which again, I think a lot of the advanced manufacturing that South Carolina is seeking to attract, that doesn't happen overnight, either.

And so I think we have... we have a way of being able to meet the needs.

And again, we're doing that while protecting our residential and commercial customers from significant increases.

Gavin> Yeah, I mean, if Scout Motors is still building out, it's not like they're like, demanding that right now.

Jimmy> Exactly, exactly.

And same sort of thing, we're seeing that, around the state.

It takes a while to build that.

Gavin> So hypothetically, I mean, all best case scenario, nothing hung up in some permitting or any other issues, but what would it take for things to come online like that?

When you talk about, you know, V.C.

Summer Two and Three here, then also Canadys.

I mean, what's the time frame you're looking at for those?

Jimmy> I'm always reluctant to put out a date because even when folks tell me, "I won't hold you to it," they hold me to it.

But, but nevertheless, having said that, I think the, I think Canadys we could see, by 2032.

And I think maybe by the mid 2030s, we could see V.C.

Summer Two and Three, in place.

So again, in the next, in the next decade, we expect to see all of that come online.

Gavin> And when we talk about, you know, that coming online and V.C.

Summer again, those megawatts there too.

But y'all still have some coal-fire energy.

How do you transition that?

I mean, is that something that you're going to still rely on?

I mean, there's back and forth over that.

Depending on the administration, it seems like, do y'all keep that going as long as possible?

I mean, how do you substitute that eventually if you're trying to go cleaner in that sense?

Jimmy> The way you identified it, coal is a wonderful resource.

It's a good base load for us.

It runs when we need it to.

But differing administrations feel differently about coal.

And we need- Part of our plan, part of bringing all of these resources to the table, is it should enable us to begin to close, some of those facilities over time.

The commitment that we have made at Santee Cooper is we will, we will continue to operate these until we have something that can replace them.

Obviously, it's a base load plant.

V.C.

Summer Two and Three would be a base load plant.

So we are, we're hopeful, that we will, we'll be able to make the transition happen over a reasoned time frame.

Having said that, we will operate these as long as we need to in order to meet the needs of the state.

And if it continues to grow, that transition may get extended a little bit longer.

Gavin> And I was going to say to that effect, I mean, is Canadys is almost a, template for what could be replicated at some of these coal-fired plants.

once you decommission, them.

I mean, because you're not going to build a small- I feel like nothing's going to be below a couple thousand megawatts when you build any more in the future.

Is that a possibility in the future when you take them offline.

Jimmy> Part of what Keller and I did when we started thinking about, doing, a facility together at Canadys was... we need to make sure that we are preparing not just Canadys for the future, but the state for the future.

And so we worked with an entity to bring in as much gas into the state, or be prepared to bring as much gas into the state as we could to create, to ensure that we could meet that economic development need.

And the reason that I tell you that is, we would... we think Canadys will be a great addition to the system.

Over the longer term for us to be able to meet all the needs and begin to slowly, transition away from coal, we will likely need additional plants.

The pipeline that we are working with today, is capable of expanding to be able to meet those additional needs.

And I say that we, obviously we need it at Santee Cooper, but Keller will need it as well.

And our friends at Duke have also announced that they are going to be building a gas plant.

I think just down the road, here, so.

Gavin> Like Santee Cooper, Duke Energy is also looking to double the size of its system in the coming years to meet the growing demand in the Carolinas.

Tim Pearson, President of Duke Energy's Utility Operations in South Carolina, spoke with us about those capacity needs at the 2,300 megawatt Robinson Nuclear Plant in Hartsville.

One of six reactors that Duke operates in the state that make up part of the largest nuclear fleet in the country.

But new gas-fired capacity is what the utility is currently seeking approval for.

> I mean, it's massive, and I think the best way to frame that up for those watching is, you know, Duke has existed for 120 plus years.

We were actually founded in South Carolina, in York County.

And what we presented to the commission, what we see, in our IRP in which they approved, was that we... that we have to effectively double the size of our system over the next 15 years.

So what took us 121 years, give or take a few, to get to, we have to now do again in the next 15 years.

Now that does include some, you know, replacement plants, retirement of some of our older.

So it's not all, you know, new load but it's substantial.

It's, you know, something we haven't ever really seen before.

And, so I think... it's an opportunity for us to put, you know, really good, long lasting, efficient resources, assets onto the grid.

And so we see it as an opportunity, but one that we also have to be careful of.

Because, again, we know that there are cost pressures that come up.

Gavin> And what's driving that demand?

I mean, I know, we're talking about the growing state, residentials only... you know, demand needs so much there is obviously growing industrial.

But then the big discussions about data centers as well.

So what's the mix when it comes to demand for Duke Energy's grid here in South Carolina?

Tim> It's a great question.

And I would say, you know, we run a dual-state system.

So our grid was built without any, consideration of state lines.

Right?

So we don't have a system line drawn... So I'll talk about it as system wide.

You know, it's an all of the above, kind of equation that's putting the stress, on the grid or really... forcing us to go into this kind of build cycle.

And data centers are a really, important topic of conversation.

And I think, it might be beneficial to have a little bit of a discussion of kind of how we're handling that, but... looking forward, the data center, our projection on data centers has it about 10 percent of that growth that I'm talking about through that type of... through the expiration of 15 years.

So, if you add, you know, industrial and commercial load plus residential load plus the, you know, necessary end of life retirement of our, our existing assets and then you had data centers that would get you to 100.

So it's about 10 percent.

Gavin> And we talk about this demand and data centers making up 10 percent of that growing demand you're talking about here on Duke's grid.

How do you double your energy needs, like you're saying at the time to kind of keep up?

I mean, what's, how do you do that?

Like, what are the plans for that?

<Yeah> I mean, we hear about Canadys being built.

Is there something similar like that in the pipeline for Duke?

I mean, we've been talking about a little bit of nuclear stuff.

How do you meet that demand?

How do you grow that?

Tim> And it may sound cliche, but it's very real for us here.

You hear a lot about the all of the above, you know, approach to, to energy or strategy.

And I think, I mean, we need also... you know, we need a lot of power.

And there's also great benefit to having a diverse system.

You know, it's very sunny right now.

Solar, today, right now is a great asset at this time.

But it's not a base load asset.

And you know, and for folks what that means is it doesn't run 24 hours a day, doesn't run as well when it's cloudy.

Gavin> Not like this.

Tim> That's right.

And so you can't run a system on it.

But when the sun is shining the fuel is free.

And we want to lower costs.

So that's an important- So we have a lot of solar that's coming on the system.

But you know, when we're really talking about base load generation and we're talking about replacing base load assets, coal plants and gas plants later... You know, we're really looking at two things, we're looking at gas and we're looking at nuclear.

And, you know, the only other technology out there is coal.

And right now, you know, coal isn't really an option.

We don't have as much coal being mined.

Railroads are using their capacity to, to move in other places.

And frankly, you know, no one's building new technologies for coal or replacement parts for coal.

It's just that industry seems to have been kind of something of the past in terms of, you know, the future of electricity.

So it's gas and it's nuclear.

And we've had a brief discussion on nuclear.

We're going to put a lot of natural gas in the system.

And, I think that's exceptionally good for our customers, both from an affordability standpoint and from a reliability standpoint.

You know, gas is, it's a really good asset to pair with solar.

You think about a gas grill versus a coal grill.

You can turn the gas on and off really quickly.

You can't do that with a, you know, a Weber charcoal grill that you like at your tailgate.

And so, that's true with electric plants, too.

And so, when the sun is shining and we're getting all these megawatts from the sun, we can, you know, curtail our gas and not have our customers pay for fuel and things of that nature.

So it's really important.

And right now we're in the process of putting five new gas plants, combined cycle gas plants.

So the big ones, like Canadys on the system.

And we're very excited because one of them is right here in South Carolina.

So, it's in Anderson County.

We've had tremendous support, from the community there.

We had our initial hearing in front of the Public Service Commission, and we're expecting them to weigh in on whether we should go forward with that plant, you know, in the next four to six weeks.

But it's, it's something that's great.

I mean, it'll be the first base load asset built in South Carolina since V.C.

Summer.

And we're very proud of it.

We take that responsibility very seriously.

But you know- Gavin> And how many megawatts would that be?

Tim> About 1,400 megawatts.

Gavin> Okay.

Tim> So slightly smaller, than Canadys.

But same technology, same air cooling.

So it uses less water.

Gavin> So we've been talking about nuclear, we've been talking about gas.

We talked a little bit about solar, keeping with solar keeping with renewables, specifically solar.

It sounds like people kind of demonized solar a little bit.

There's been a lot, there's been so many shifts on people's approach to it.

And there's also concerns about the land it takes up.

Farmland, I mean, there's discussion about that.

How do you work solar into the mix and then also tack in battery power, which seems like, to be another solution that you guys are enabling.

Tim> Yeah.

So, like I said, solar is a really valuable asset as part of a system.

It's not a standalone asset, but, you know, when you're talking about gas, you're subject to variability in the cost of the fuel, right?

And so, when we have really cold winter mornings and gas is scarce because it's not a South Carolina specific cold day, it's regional and it becomes more expensive that can impact people.

We like assets that reduce that variability because it reduces cost pressure on our customers.

And so, solar's a really good part of that.

You know, and... and so I'd say land use is a real thing.

And, you know, we don't want to put solar plants, anywhere that people don't want them.

And I think, you know, ultimately, you know, our goal is always to balance, you know, it's this either side of the equation, reliability and affordability.

And how do we do that?

And when we go into the models that we present as we're kind of planning for our system, you know, those are the two pillars of it.

And those things change.

You know, there was a massive change in federal policy around the, you know, the tax structure for solar.

That made them less affordable, that changed the amount of solar that we intended to put on the system.

Because ultimately it wasn't, it didn't make economic sense for our customers.

So we will constantly watch that and we'll respond to it.

And one of the benefits of planning 15 years ahead is you have time to adjust, you know, before you start putting yourself in a position where you're locked into an asset that doesn't make the most sense.

For South Carolina ETV, I'm Gavin Jackson.

Be well, South Carolina.

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