If you get nervous when your vehicle’s gas light comes on, you know how the leaders of South Carolina’s electric cooperatives feel about our state’s looming energy crisis.
If only it were as easy to refuel our supply of electricity as it is to pull into a gas station.
Unfortunately, hundreds of thousands of people in South Carolina and North Carolina felt like they were stranded on the side of the road on Christmas Eve 2022.
Several days of freezing temperatures drove the demand for electricity to record highs, and our state didn’t have enough power to meet that demand.
Major utilities were forced to undergo rolling blackouts — the widespread outages you usually only hear about in faraway places like California.
We were lucky: Our co-op members didn’t have their power cut off. But our needle was as close to E as it could go. And the risk of running empty again remains.
The North America Electric Reliability Corporation, an independent organization that monitors the reliability of our power grid, recently warned of the growing risk that we could run out of power when demand spikes due to extreme weather.
Co-op leaders across our state know these threats to reliability are unacceptable. It’s our duty to keep the lights on for 2 million South Carolinians.
We can’t ask them to suffer through scorching days or freezing nights without power. And we can’t afford to miss out on game-changing economic development projects because our state didn’t plan ahead for its energy future.
How have we reached this point? Demand for electricity is soaring because of South Carolina’s rapid population growth and our success in recruiting new industry.
Unfortunately, South Carolina hasn’t succeeded in building new, large-scale power plants to keep up. The cancellation of the V.C. Summer nuclear expansion project has left us even further behind.
To make matters worse, proposed federal regulations could require the shutdown of existing power plants before we can adequately replace them.
What can we do to solve this problem? We must upgrade our power grid by building new power plants, pipelines and transmission lines.
We must invest in a diverse mix of natural gas, nuclear, solar, hydro, batteries and other emerging energy sources to ensure a stable power supply while protecting our environment.
We must streamline burdensome permitting processes and untangle supply chain bottlenecks that hold these projects hostage for years and years.
What actions are we taking? We have sounded the alarm about these challenges in Columbia and in Washington. Policymakers have heard us and are taking steps to help.
For the past 18 months, S.C. lawmakers have listened to energy experts and utility critics alike in order to craft a bill, H.5118, that will ensure South Carolinians have access to reliable, affordable energy.
Importantly, the bill paves the way for Dominion Energy and Santee Cooper to jointly build a natural gas plant in Colleton County that we believe is sorely needed.
This plant will supply always-available energy to homes and businesses across our state. It will also back up the thousands of megawatts of sometimes-available solar energy that is coming onto the power grid.
Critics of H.5118 have had plenty to say in the past few weeks. That’s OK. It’s how the process should work. State lawmakers are revising the bill to address most of those concerns.
But as we search for a way to address South Carolina’s looming power shortage, we worry this is increasingly becoming a debate between those who are proposing a real solution and those who only want to criticize, obstruct and delay.
South Carolina cannot afford to experiment with an unrealistic Green New Deal approach to energy in our state. We do not have the luxury of waiting.
We must modernize our grid to meet the demands of tomorrow.
We are running on fumes. If we fail to act, we could soon be left stranded. Contact your legislators and let them know you support H.5118 because our state needs real energy solutions now.
By Paul Basha