State Sen. Tom Davis: VC Summer sale will transform crisis into opportunity for SC

State Sen. Tom Davis

For more than eight years, a few of us in the Legislature have pursued a vision that many others dismissed as impossible. In July 2017, when the joint venture between Santee Cooper and SCANA to build two nuclear reactors at the V.C. Summer site in Fairfield County collapsed, skeptics declared the $9 billion in investments a completely unrecoverable waste of money. The project's abandonment left ratepayers holding the burden of a massive failure and cast a shadow over South Carolina's energy future.

Today, however, as recent stories in The Post and Courier have chronicled, we stand on the precipice of transforming that perceived failure into a productive asset while pioneering an innovative approach to power generation, one that places the financial burden on the private hyperscalers that are creating the demand for new energy capacity. This is far more than a financial recovery from the failed Santee Cooper-SCANA venture. More broadly, it shows how our state can more efficiently and equitably approach energy-infrastructure development in the years to come

The impending sale of the unfinished reactors by Santee Cooper to a private-sector consortium, and the completion of those reactors by that consortium at no risk to ratepayers or taxpayers, will move billions of dollars in sunk costs from the once-dormant project off the ratepayers' base, directly translating to reduced monthly bills for consumers who have carried this burden for too long. These are the citizens who deserved better when the original nuclear construction project fell apart, and this outcome finally delivers on that promise.

Completing what Santee Cooper and SCANA could not will add 2,200 megawatts of carbon-free energy to the grid via two state-of-the-art reactors built with private capital and at private risk. And it will establish a replicable framework for meeting our state’s future energy demands. As our needs continue to grow, particularly driven by data centers and technological infrastructure, this model demonstrates how private investment can shoulder the costs and risks traditionally borne by ratepayers.

The path to this moment required persistence and strategic legislative action. In 2018, then-Sen. Mike Fanning, D-Fairfield, and I filed a joint resolution encouraging Santee Cooper to maintain the V.C. Summer improvements in good condition rather than liquidating components for pennies on the dollar. The debate that followed on the floor of the S.C. Senate persuaded the utility to embrace that approach, a decision that preserved the project's value and kept our options open.

Earlier this year, I filed another joint resolution, one that received unanimous legislative approval and the governor's signature, directing Santee Cooper to solicit acquisition and completion bids from the private sector. And the utility is to be commended for the professional way, led by its president, Jimmy Staton, in which it subsequently conducted that bidding process.

These years-long efforts reflect a commitment to transforming the V.C. Summer debacle from a source of shame into a source of pride for South Carolina. The win-win-win outcome benefits ratepayers through reduced costs, addresses environmental concerns through carbon-free generation and creates a more-equitable model for future energy infrastructure development.

Tom Davis represents Beaufort and Jasper counties in the South Carolina Senate.