Power up: SCE&G electric rates rising by $49 a year

S.C. Electric & Gas residential customers will pay $49 more a year on the average electric bill starting next month.

The Public Service Commission of South Carolina approved 2.92 percent residential rate hike to help cover $66.2 million in costs for the two reactors at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station in Jenkinsville, northwest of Columbia.

The average monthly residential bill will rise $4.11 to $146.40, SCE&G said. The new rates take effect on Oct. 30.

SCE&G won approval in 2007 to raise rates for building the nearly $10 billion reactors, a move the Cayce utility says will save $1 billion in finance costs.

Residential customers will pay on average $233 more per year than in 2008 with the seventh hike for the nuclear station approved last week.

The latest increase is the second-largest for residential customers related to the nuclear plant project. The biggest came in 2013 at $50 for the year.

SCE&G first requested what would have been the biggest rate-hike to pay for the reactors in May. Homeowners would have paid $52 more a year under that plan.

But the rate increase dropped in talks with state regulators.

For businesses, rates next month are rising by 2.91 percent for small-size and medium-size customers and 2.56 percent for large commercial and industrial customers, the utility said.

SCE&G serves 684,000 electric customers statewide with more than one-third in Richland and Lexington counties.

Opening of the reactors at the Summer nuclear station have been delayed by more than two years from original projections.

The first reactor is now scheduled to start in late 2018 to mid-2019 with the second new reactor firing up a year later, utility officials have said.

The latest delay came from problems with fabrication and delivery of a part from a Lake Charles, La., supplier, the company said.

The delay is costing the utility more than $200 million, which could be passed to customers.

Critics have said SCE&G, which is partnering with the state-owned utility Santee Cooper on the project, should not ask customers to foot more of the bill for the reactors.

They think the utility should develop energy-efficiency plans and generate more power from alternative energy sources.

This story was originally published September 29, 2014 at 5:36 PM with the headline "Power up: SCE&G electric rates rising by $49 a year."