Even the most well-intentioned companies often charge how much they think they can get away with and delay how much they think they can in expensive upgrades that are not essential to their day-to-day operations. It is human nature and, for investor-owned companies, almost a must.
The temptation doubles for regulated monopolies, as they do not have to compete for customers and since, at least in South Carolina, this “regulated” part has traditionally not been aggressive enough to serve as the replacement that should be free. of Market.
Therefore, we are encouraged by Dominion Energy’s plan to retire its excess supply of coal-fired electricity generation by 2030 – 40 years earlier than it had promised in its original proposal last year and just two years after initially planning to even start to give up the dirtiest energy source in their portfolio.
While Dominion deserves credit for writing the new plan – and for writing more environmentally friendly plans in other states that made his initial SC effort so painful – the real credit goes to the members of the state Public Service Commission, who, unlike the commissioners who came before them, recognize that their job is not to be a rubber stamp for public services.
Of course, it is not entirely clear that the work of previous commissioners – as defined by our Legislature – was not to be a rubber stamp. For years, lawmakers continued to select commissioners who acted in exactly that position and continued to pass laws that made it difficult to do otherwise. Most dramatically, the Legislature tied the hands of regulators through the Base Load Review Law, which practically required them to continue approving the rate hike after the rate hike for Dominion’s predecessor, SCE & G, while continuing to throw money at the nuclear construction project of VC Summer.
Since SCE & G and Santee Cooper shut down the expansion of VC Summer in 2017, the Legislature has not only replaced previous commissioners, but repealed the Basic Cargo Review Law and authorized other state agencies to support taxpayers’ interests instead. public utilities before the commission, but also passed a law to set benchmarks that utilities need to meet when developing their long-term energy forecasts. This law gave regulators more power to make public services accelerate the adoption of renewable energy, increase energy efficiency measures for customers and close plants that pump the most heat-retaining gases into the atmosphere.
Dominion was the first utility company to submit a plan under the 2019 law, and at the end of last year, the PSC rejected its first submission, leading to the new proposal the company submitted last month.
Is the new power generation plan perfect? Of course. Although it obtains the utility of the coal business much earlier, it replaces most coal with natural gas. This is a definite improvement – it releases about half of the carbon dioxide and does not include pollutants like mercury – but not a permanent solution, as natural gas can release methane, which means that if things go wrong, it can produce a heavier carbon footprint gas than coal.
And the dealership launched its new carbon reduction plan while trying to convince the PSC to accept a separate solar plan that makes installing solar panels in their homes or businesses much less attractive to homeowners.
But both the power generation plan and the scrutiny that Dominion’s solar tariff proposal is receiving would have been unimaginable five years ago. Both serve as useful illustrations of the huge difference a public service law can make that does not assume that what the monopoly wants is always in the best interest of the state and public service regulators who care about something more than the bottom of the bill. pit. line.