Santee Cooper chairman: ‘We had leadership failures. We’re addressing those’
Leaders of Santee Cooper defended the embattled state-owned utility Friday, a day after state officials and consultants hired to evaluate bids to buy or manage it raised concerns publicly about its leadership and culture.
At a board meeting for Santee Cooper in Columbia, acting chairman Dan Ray said leadership problems at the utility are in the past.
“We don’t have a broken culture,” Ray said. “We had leadership issues. We had leadership failures. We’re addressing those.”
“We are practicing excellence every day,” he added.
Concerns about the utility came up Thursday, when Department of Administration officials and their consultants criticized Santee Cooper for failing at times to cooperate with the state as it gathered information needed to help evaluate proposals to buy or manage the utility as well as a reform plan from the utility itself.
Those concerns were shared with lawmakers in a meeting where the state officials reviewed their evaluation of those offers.
On Friday, Santee Cooper CEO Mark Bonsall, a retired Arizona public utility executive hired in July to help reform the utility, offered his perspective on the process of working with the state.
Bonsall told board members the utility provided 20,000 pages worth of documents to the state to help with its evaluation.
“It was a stressful time for everybody,” Bonsall said. “I think we developed a good working relationship with (DOA Executive Director) Marcia Adams, and we got it done. We got it all done by Jan. 3. I’m pleased with that. Was it smooth as silk every step of the way? Probably not. There were some hiccups, but on the balance I think it was a fabulous effort on both sides.”
In July Santee Cooper brought in Bonsall and a former deputy of his to help turn things around after Santee Cooper racked up $4 billion in losses tied to a now-abandoned effort to build two nuclear reactors in Fairfield County.
Ray said the utility was unsure what the vision and plan would be last year. But Bonsall led in the creation of the utility’s reform plan.
“It’s a material improvement from where we were a year ago,” Ray said.
Santee Cooper’s board held its first meeting Friday since the Department of Administration released its report. That report named Florida-based NextEra as the best bid to buy Santee Cooper, Virginia-based Dominion Energy as the best management option and also evaluated Santee Cooper’s reform plan.
Santee Cooper’s reform plan includes increasing renewable sources of energy, such as solar and natural gas, in its portfolio, and moving away from coal. The reform plan includes phasing out the coal-fired Winyah Generating Station.
Bonsall said he is confident Santee Cooper would be able to pull off its shift in energy generation, even though the utility doesn’t have the track record of doing so, as pointed out by DOA consultants.
“We know how. This is leading edge, but it’s not (a) bleeding edge. We’ve done this before. We know how to do this,” Bonsall said referring to his previous work in Arizona, which included shutting down a coal plant.
Santee Cooper also plans to reduce its workforce by 10% by 2028 through retirements and attrition. The utility also plans to pay off $4.7 billion in debt by 2039.
Santee Cooper’s reform plan includes more transparency, including creating an integrated resource planning group, with a proposal of having representation from the General Assembly. Santee Cooper also proposed allowing a state energy watchdog to review major projects and pricing, rather than that power lying solely with the board.
The board also would have term limits and increased qualifications to serve such as having a bachelor’s degree and having experience in energy issues, finance or engineering, among other areas of expertise.
Although Bonsall would not comment on proposals from NextEra and Dominion during his presentation, he said Santee Cooper’s reform plan would have benefits for South Carolina including making sure decisions are made locally and not in other states.
