On a cold South Carolina morning last month, a new mother woke up with a start. The soft steady hum of the heating system filled the room with warmth that wrapped around her sleeping newborn like a blanket. From down the hall came the gentle tumbling sound of the dryer finishing its cycle – a fresh load of tiny onesies, clean and warm and ready. She smiled, relaxed and allowed herself a few more minutes of rest as the coffee pot kicked into gear in the kitchen.
Moments like this are powered across South Carolina every day because of thoughtful planning by Santee Cooper and Central Electric Power Cooperative – planning that is more critical than ever with the state’s burgeoning population growth. We are homegrown electric providers, and together we supply electricity to every county in the state. If you are a Santee Cooper customer or an electric cooperative member, the lights came on in your home or business today because of the planning years ago by your friends and neighbors.
Santee Cooper is the state-owned power company, and it is responsible for providing affordable, reliable electric power, including for electric cooperatives. Central is Santee Cooper’s largest customer, purchasing close to 70% of the electricity that Santee Cooper provides and then incorporating that power into its generation portfolio before delivering it to the state’s 19 individual consumer-owned electric cooperatives.
Just-released U.S. Census data shows South Carolina is the fastest-growing state in the nation – and has been one of the fastest growing for the past five years. Against that backdrop, keeping the lights on requires continuous, coordinated planning by these two power providers. Among the key questions we address in this planning are:
How much power will our customers need in 10 years;
Which current generating resources will still be available in these future years;
What new generating technologies will be available; and
Of those resources, which ones are the most reliable, affordable and able to provide power when customers need it?
We consider a wide variety of information and calculations to forecast customer needs. We work with independent experts to assess potential resource options. We ask how we can minimize environmental and community impacts. We check each other’s assumptions and calculations.
Identifying potential generating resources is itself a complex and comprehensive process based on many factors, including how soon additional power is needed. Solar resources or smaller natural gas units can be brought online in two to five years, including the time for planning, public input, regulatory processes including siting and permitting, and construction. Larger baseload stations can take eight years or longer.
In addition to different sources of power, our combined system today is a mix of plants that we own and operate and plants that are owned by independent power producers that sell us the power.
These potential resources are first evaluated by experts and considered for inclusion in annual integrated resource plans developed by Santee Cooper and Central. These annual plans are refined, with involvement and input from customers and other stakeholders, and are vetted by state regulators. The outcome is a roadmap identifying the most reliable and cost-effective resources to meet our customer needs.
As we move towards development of any specific resource, a public and transparent process begins that includes more research, more planning, and community engagement as we consider locations and other factors. Whether we are building a generating station ourselves or contracting with a power developer who would build the plant, we keep the public informed and involved. We do this through sharing information on websites, participating in public processes such as permitting, and hosting our own outreach through events such as open houses.
Getting a power plant from conception to production is a deliberate, even painstaking, progression. The effort yields important benefits for South Carolinians who depend on the results: reliable, cost-effective power that is available for generations to come.
Santee Cooper and Central agreed to this joint planning process in 2013, and it has already proven its value. All of our current power resources under construction went through it, including expansion of an existing plant in Anderson County, development of a new battery energy storage project in Berkeley County, and construction of new generation on an existing station site in Georgetown County.
We have a solid, time-tested roadmap that lets us successfully navigate complicated resource issues so that new parents – and everyone else we power – can focus on what matters most to them.