Commentary: If SC were a car, we’d be running on empty. We need more energy generation.

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.

Paul Basha smiles for a photo
Paul Basha is CEO of York Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive and chair­man of Cen­tral Elec­tric Pow­er Co-op.

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