South Carolina gets 4 legitimate offers to buy Santee Cooper. 3 would pay off VC Summer debt
COLUMBIA, SC -- The state of South Carolina has received four legitimate offers to buy all of Santee Cooper and pay off the state-owned utility’s $8 billion in debt, a consultant wrote in a report released late Friday.
At least three of the non-binding offers, subject to further negotiation, would ensure the 2 million South Carolinians who get their power from Santee Cooper would pay no more for the failed V.C. Summer nuclear project if the S.C. General Assembly decides to sell the utility, according to the report from Virginia-based ICF.
The 40-page report indicates the sale of Santee Cooper would leave its customers paying less for the V.C. Summer debacle than customers of SCE&G, the majority partner in the failed $9 billion project. SCE&G customers collectively must pay an additional $2.3 billion for two unfinished reactors over the next 20 years even that utility was bought by Virginia-based Dominion Energy earlier this year.
Currently, the customers that Santee Cooper directly serves are on the hook to pay roughly $6,200 more per household in higher rates for the unfinished reactors over the next four decades. Customers of the 20 co-ops who buy power from Santee Cooper contractually are obligated to pay about $4,200 per household for the failed project.
Read more here: https://www.thestate.com/news/politics-government/article225394705.html