BRACK: More energy options are a good deal for consumers

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher  |  An energy revolution is underway in South Carolina and you may not even realize it. Just look at recent news headlines:

Wind energy. Federal regulators have identified almost 1,200 nautical square miles of the South Carolina coast that have the potential to produce wind energy. Within a decade, depending on the regulatory process, sea-based turbines could be generating power much like offshore wind fields in the North Sea.

Consumer solar. The state office that oversees power-generating issues last week told Statehouse Report it’s ready to guide the expansion of solar power in the state as required by a law passed last year. It won’t be long before churches and consumers can easily lease roof space to generate power through solar panels — and to sell some of it back to utilities when it isn’t used on site.

More nuclear. Despite consumer grumbling about rate hikes forced by cost overruns, South Carolina’s utilities are investing $6.8 billion to build two new nuclear reactors to provide cleaner energy. The reactors, originally set to start next year but pushed back to 2020, will add capacity to South Carolina’s power generation and help offset closures of dirtier, coal-burning plants that have been mothballed.

Efficiencies. Despite gas being at record low prices now, energy-efficient hybrid cars and natural-gas-powered buses continue to gain momentum. Consumers also are embracing energy efficiencies, such as moving away from incandescent bulbs to fluorescent, or more recently, LED bulbs.

“South Carolina is turning a corner on clean energy,” said Hamilton Davis, energy program director at the S.C. Coastal Conservation League in Charleston. “We have already reduced carbon emissions dramatically over the past decade due to coal plant retirements and energy efficiency.

“Now we are anticipating an abundance of new solar resources to come online, as well as more aggressive energy efficiency investments that will help consumers lower their electric bills.”

For Mike Couick, president and CEO of the Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina, what’s happening with energy across the state has been more of a continuing evolution than a revolution.

“We have historically witnessed energy evolutions occurring within the context of the latest and greatest — but certainly not equivalent — fuel choices:  wood to peat, peat to coal, coal to kerosene, kerosene to other fossil fuel derivatives (gas, diesel and natural gas), fossil fuels to nuclear and, then, nuclear to renewables such as solar and wind,” he said. “These transitions most often have been driven by a combination of technology, economics and regulation.

But more change, he agrees, is coming — particularly for consumers in the next decade.

“The evolution will be accelerated by an increased capacity of information technology and micro-applications which shift options to behind the meter, that is, on the customer side of the meter,” Couick said, adding that a revolution could occur with big advances in energy storage, two-way communication between a utility and consumer and market-based trading of electricity between consumers and utilities.

“A utility’s survival will depend upon its shift from a command and control model to one supporting increased consumer product diversity. Those utilities that resist will fail.”

At Santee Cooper, the state’s largest power generator, boosting alternative energy sources and conservation have been strategic goals for nearly a decade. In 2001, the utility opened its first renewable Green Power station and now includes the state’s largest solar farm. Six years later, Santee Cooper’s board set a policy to meet 40 percent of consumer energy needs by 2020 with non-greenhouse gas-emitting resources, renewable energy, conservation and energy efficiency.

“That 2007 goal has really mapped our activity since, including constructing two new emissions-free nuclear power units; increasing our renewable energy generation by 400 percent; and launching an aggressive energy efficiency program that helps customers save more energy every year,” said company spokesman Mollie Gore. The utility, for example, recently generated 80 percent of its power by coal. By 2021, that amount is expected to drop to a third, she said.

Bottom line: Consumers will have lots of options for transforming their mix of energy sources — from rooftop and community solar to solar leasing, home batteries, more energy efficiency and nimbler utilities.

Andy Brack is editor and publisher of Charleston Currents and Statehouse Report. You can reach him at: editor@charlestoncurrents.com