§ 58-37-40 — Integrated resource plans.

South Carolina § 58-37-40

• Jurisdiction: South Carolina
• Title 58: PUBLIC UTILITIES, SERVICES AND CARRIERS
• Ch. 37: ENERGY SUPPLY AND EFFICIENCY

Text

(A) Electrical utilities, electric cooperatives, municipally owned electric utilities, and the South Carolina Public Service Authority must each prepare an integrated resource plan. An integrated resource plan must be prepared and submitted at least every three years. Nothing in this section may be construed as requiring interstate natural gas companies whose rates and services are regulated only by the federal government or gas utilities subject to the jurisdiction of the commission to prepare and submit an integrated resource plan. (1) Each electrical utility with one hundred thousand or more customer accounts and the Public Service Authority must submit its integrated resource plan to the commission. The integrated resource plan must be posted on the electrical utility's website and on the commission's website. (2) Electric cooperatives, electric utilities with less than one hundred thousand customer accounts, and municipally owned electric utilities shall each submit an integrated resource plan to the State Energy Office. Each integrated resource plan must be posted on the State Energy Office's website. If an electric cooperative, electric utility with less than one hundred thousand customer accounts, or municipally owned utility has a website, its integrated resource plan must also be posted on its website. For distribution, electric cooperatives that are members of a cooperative that provides wholesale service, the integrated resource plan may be coordinated and consolidated into a single plan provided that nonshared resources or programs of individual distribution cooperatives are highlighted. Where plan components listed in subsection (B)(1) and (2) of this section do not apply to a distribution or wholesale cooperative or a municipally owned electric utility as a result of the cooperative or the municipally owned electric utility not owning or operating generation resources, the plan may state that fact or refer to the plan of the wholesale power generator. Where plan components listed in subsection (B)(1) and (2) of this section do not apply to an electrical utility with less than one hundred thousand customer accounts as a result of its own generation resources being comprised of more than seventy-five percent renewable energy or because it purchases wholesale load balancing generation services, then the plan may state that fact or refer to the plan of the wholesale power generator. For purposes of this section, a wholesale power generator does not include a municipally created joint agency if that joint agency receives at least seventy-five percent of its electricity from a generating facility owned in partnership with an electrical utility and that electrical utility: (a) generally serves the area in which the joint agency's members are located; and (b) is responsible for dispatching the capacity and output of the generated electricity. (3) The South Carolina Public Service Authority shall submit its integrated resource plan to the commission. The Public Service Authority shall develop a public process allowing for input from all stakeholders prior to submitting the integrated resource plan. The integrated resource plan must be developed in consultation with the electric cooperatives and municipally owned electric utilities purchasing power and energy from the Public Service Authority and consider any feedback provided by retail customers and shall include the effect of demand-side management activities of the electric cooperatives and municipally owned electric utilities that directly purchase power and energy from the Public Service Authority or sell power and energy generated by the Public Service Authority. The integrated resource plan must be posted on the commission's website and on the Public Service Authority's website. (4)(a) In addition to the requirements of Section 58-37-40(B), the Public Service Authority's integrated resource plan shall include an analysis of long-term power supply alternatives and enumerate the cost of various resource portfolios over various study periods including a twenty-year study period and, by comparison on a net present value basis, identify the most cost-effective and least ratepayer-risk resource portfolio to meet the Public Service Authority's total capacity and energy requirements while maintaining safe and reliable electric service. (b) In addition to the requirements of Section 58-37-40(B), the commission shall review and evaluate the Public Service Authority's analysis of long-term power supply alternatives and various resource portfolios over various study periods including a twenty-year study period and, by comparison on a net present value basis, identify the most cost-effective and lowest ratepayer-risk resource portfolio to meet the Public Service Authority's total capacity and energy requirements while maintaining safe and reliable electric service. The commission's evaluation shall include, but not be limited to: (i) evaluating the cost-effectiveness and ratepayer-risk of self-build generation and transmission options compared with various long-term power supply alternatives, including power purchase agreements, competitive procurement of renewable energy, joint dispatch agreements, market purchases from an existing regional transmission organization, joining or creating a new regional transmission organization, using best available technology for energy generation, transmission, storage and distribution, or any combination thereof. In evaluating and identifying the most cost-effective and least ratepayer-risk resource portfolio, the commission shall strive to reduce the risk to ratepayers associated with any generation and transmission options while maintaining safe and reliable electric service; and (ii) an analysis of any potential cost savings that might accrue to ratepayers from the retirement of remaining coal generation assets. (c) The authority's integrated resource plan must provide the information required in Section 58-37-40(B) and must be developed in consultation with the electric cooperatives, including Central Electric Power Cooperative, and municipally owned electric utilities purchasing power and energy from the Public Service Authority, and consider any feedback provided by retail customers and shall include the effect of demand-side management activities of the electric cooperatives, including Central Electric Power Cooperative, and municipally owned electric utilities that directly purchase power and energy from the Public Service Authority or sell power and energy generated by the Public Service Authority. The Integrated Resource Plan of the South Carolina Public Service Authority shall include and evaluate at least one resource portfolio, which will reflect the closure of the Winyah Generating Station by 2028, designed to provide safe and reliable electric service while meeting a net zero carbon emission goal by the year 2050. (B)(1) An integrated resource plan shall include all of the following: (a) a long-term forecast of the utility's sales and peak demand under various reasonable scenarios; (b) the type of generation technology proposed for a generation facility contained in the plan and the proposed capacity of the generation facility, including fuel cost sensitivities under various reasonable scenarios; (c) projected energy purchased or produced by the utility from a renewable energy resource; (d) a summary of the electrical transmission investments planned by the utility; (e) several resource portfolios developed with the purpose of fairly evaluating the range of demand-side, supply-side, storage, and other technologies and services available to meet the utility's service obligations. Such portfolios and evaluations must include an evaluation of low, medium, and high cases for the adoption of renewable energy and cogeneration, energy efficiency, and demand response measures, including consideration of the following: (i) customer energy efficiency and demand response programs; (ii) facility retirement assumptions; and (iii) sensitivity analyses related to fuel costs, environmental regulations, and other uncertainties or risks; (f) data regarding the utility's current generation portfolio, including the age, licensing status, and remaining estimated life of operation for each facility in the portfolio; (g) plans for meeting current and future capacity needs with the cost estimates for all proposed resource portfolios in the plan; (h) an analysis of the cost and reliability impacts of all reasonable options available to meet projected energy and capacity needs; (i) a forecast of the utility's peak demand, details regarding the amount of peak demand reduction the utility expects to achieve, and the actions the utility proposes to take in order to achieve that peak demand reduction; and (j) a report addressing updates to the utility's transmission plan under the utility's open access transmission tariff pursuant to the federal jurisdictional planning process. In this report, the utility shall, when applicable, describe planned transmission improvements specific to siting of new resources expected to impact interconnection constraints or other operations of the systems. The utility shall also describe how it evaluated alternate transmission technologies when developing solutions for identified transmission needs for interconnecting resources. The utility's transmission report must include how the utility evaluates transmission investments, including: (i) a description of how the utility evaluated a range of transmission solutions, including non-wires alternatives, joint projects with neighboring and other regional utilities, other upgrades to existing facilities, and other best practices. Modeling may consider, as appropriate, grid-enhancing technologies and alternate transmission technologies such as static synchronous compensators, static Volt-Ampere Reactive (VAR) compensators, advanced power flow control devices, transmission switching, synchronous condensers, voltage source converters, advanced conductors, switchable reactors, and tower lifting in a manner consistent with common utility practice; (ii) a description of how transmission factored into the utility's evaluation of the range of future scenarios included in the fifteen-year time period of the utility's resource plan, including significant continued economic growth and the retirement of the utility's coal generation; (iii) a discussion of transmission considerations for facilities included in the utility's preferred resource plan for which there are particular sites specified; (iv) information such that intervenors and stakeholders can pursue participation in local transmission planning collaborative activities which are held pursuant to orders from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission; and (v) any other information that the utility believes is relevant to its resource plan or future transmission investments. (2) An integrated resource plan may include distribution resource plans or integrated system operation plans. (C)(1) The commission shall have a proceeding to review each electrical utility subject to subsection (A)(1) and the Public Service Authority's integrated resource plan. As part of the integrated resource plan filing, the commission shall allow intervention by interested parties. The procedural schedule shall include dates for completion of each phase of discovery, including discovery related to the integrated resource plan as filed, direct testimony of the applicant, direct testimony of the Office of Regulatory Staff and other parties and intervenors, and rebuttal testimony of the applicant. Except upon showing exceptional circumstances, all discovery shall be served in time to allow its completion, but not less than ten days prior to the hearing. The commission shall establish a procedural schedule to permit reasonable discovery after an integrated resource plan is filed in order to assist parties in obtaining evidence concerning the integrated resource plan, including the reasonableness and prudence of the plan and alternatives to the plan raised by intervening parties. No later than three hundred days after an electrical utility or the Public Service Authority files an integrated resource plan, the commission shall issue a final order approving, modifying, or denying the plan filed by the electrical utility or the Public Service Authority. (2) The commission shall approve an electrical utility's or the Public Service Authority's integrated resource plan if the commission determines that the proposed integrated resource plan represents the most reasonable and prudent means of meeting the electrical utility's or the Public Service Authority's energy and capacity needs as of the time the plan is reviewed. In reviewing an integrated resource plan, the commission shall give due consideration as to the resources and actions necessary for the utility to fulfill compliance and reliability obligations pursuant to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, the SERC Reliability Corporation, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission requirements, as well as environmental requirements applicable to resources serving customers in this State. Matters related to the scope and sufficiency of an electrical utility's demand-side plans and activities shall be considered exclusively in proceedings conducted pursuant to Section 58-37-20. In reviewing an integrated resource plan, the commission shall focus its review on the decisions which the applicant must make in the near term based on the triennial integrated resource plan under consideration at the time and shall approve a plan if it finds that the plan appropriately balances the following factors: (a) resource adequacy and capacity to serve anticipated peak electrical load, including the need for electric capacity and energy required to support economic development and industry retention in the electrical utility's or the Public Service Authority's service territory and to meet applicable planning reserve margins; (b) consumer affordability and least reasonable cost considering the resources needed to support economic development and industry retention, and other risks and benefits; (c) compliance with applicable state and federal environmental regulations; (d) power supply reliability; (e) commodity price risks; (f) diversity of generation supply; (g) the efficiencies and optimum plans for any electrical utility system spanning state lines located within the electrical utility's or the Public Service Authority's balancing authority area; and (h) other foreseeable conditions that the commission determines to be for the public's interest. (3) In modifying or rejecting an electrical utility's or the Public Service Authority's integrated resource plan, the commission shall only require revisions that are reasonably anticipated to materially change resource procurement decisions to be made on the basis of the integrated resource plan under review. If the commission modifies or rejects an electrical utility's or the Public Service Authority's integrated resource plan, the electrical utility or the Public Service Authority, within sixty days after the date of the final order, shall submit a revised plan addressing concerns identified by the commission and incorporating commission-mandated revisions to the integrated resource plan to the commission for approval. Within sixty days of the electrical utility's or the Public Service Authority's revised filing, the Office of Regulatory Staff shall review the electrical utility's or the Public Service Authority's revised plan and submit a report to the commission assessing the sufficiency of the revised filing. Other parties to the integrated resource plan proceeding also may submit comments. No later than sixty days after the Office of Regulatory Staff report is filed with the commission, the commission at its discretion may determine whether to accept the revised integrated resource plan or to mandate further remedies that the commission deems appropriate. (4) The submission, review, and acceptance of an integrated resource plan by the commission, or the inclusion of any specific resource in an accepted integrated resource plan, shall not be determinative of the reasonableness or prudence of the acquisition or construction of any resource or the making of any expenditure. An electrical utility shall retain the burden of proof to show that all of its investments and expenditures are reasonable and prudent when seeking cost recovery in rates. (D)(1) An electrical utility and the Public Service Authority shall each submit annual updates to its integrated resource plan to the commission. An annual update must include an update to the electric utility's or the Public Service Authority's base planning assumptions relative to its most recently accepted integrated resource plan, including, but not limited to: energy and demand forecast, commodity fuel price inputs, renewable energy forecast, energy efficiency and demand-side management forecasts, changes to projected retirement dates of existing units, along with other inputs the commission deems to be for the public interest. The electrical utility's or Public Service Authority's annual update must describe the impact of the updated base planning assumptions on the selected resource plan. (2) The Office of Regulatory Staff shall review each electrical utility's or the Public Service Authority's annual update and submit a report within ninety days to the commission providing a recommendation concerning the reasonableness of the annual update. After reviewing the annual update and the Office of Regulatory Staff report, the commission may accept the annual update or direct the electrical utility or the Public Service Authority to make changes to the annual update that the commission determines to be in the public interest within sixty days from the submittal of the Office of Regulatory Staff's report. (E) Intervenors shall bear their own costs of participating in proceedings before the commission except that the commission may order utilities to provide software licenses to intervenors who are participating in litigated proceedings before the commission, where doing so is in the public interest. If software licenses are provided to intervenors, the intervenors shall reimburse the utility for the cost of the software use. Nothing in this subsection permits the disclosure of any utility information deemed confidential by statute, regulation, or a determination by the commission or obviates the intervenor's obligation to enter into a non-disclosure agreement pertaining to disclosure of confidential or trade secrets. (F) The commission is authorized to promulgate regulations to carry out the provisions of this section.

Legislative History

HISTORY: 1992 Act No. 449, Part IV SECTION 1, eff July 1, 1992; 1997 Act No. 26, SECTIONS 3, 4, eff May 21, 1997; 2019 Act No. 62 (H.3659), SECTION 7, eff May 16, 2019; 2021 Act No. 90 (H.3194), SECTION 21, eff January 1, 2022; 2025 Act No. 41 (H.3309), SECTION 21, eff May 12, 2025. Editor's Note 2025 Act No. 41, SECTION 1, provides as follows: "SECTION 1. This act may be cited as the 'South Carolina Energy Security Act.' " 2025 Act No. 41, SECTION 13.B, provides as follows: "B. All other sections of Chapter 37 may be cited as Article 1, entitled 'Planning for Energy Supply.'" 2025 Act No. 41, SECTION 33, provides as follows: "SECTION 33. (A) To foster economic development and future jobs in this State resulting from the supply chains associated with the same while supporting the significant and growing energy and capacity needs of the State, enhance grid resiliency, and maintain reliability, the General Assembly finds that the State of South Carolina should take steps necessary to encourage the development of a diverse mix of long-lead, clean generation resources that may include nuclear and advanced nuclear, biomass as defined in Section 12-63-20(B)(2) of the S.C. Code, hydrogen-capable resources, fusion energy, and other technologies, and should preserve the option of efficiency development of such long-lead resources with timely actions to establish or maintain eligibility for or capture available tax or other financial incentives or address operational needs. "(B) For an electrical utility to capture available tax or other financial or operational incentives for South Carolina ratepayers in a timely manner, the commission may find that actions by an electrical utility in pursuit of the directives in Section 58-37-35(A) are in the public interest, provided that the commission determines that such proposed actions are in the public interest and reasonably balance economic development and industry retention benefits, capacity expansion benefits, resource adequacy and diversification and potential risks, costs, and benefits to ratepayers and otherwise comply with all other legal requirements applicable to the electrical utility's proposed action. For the South Carolina Public Service Authority, the Office of Regulatory Staff and the Public Service Authority's board of directors shall apply the same principles described in this subsection in evaluating and approving actions proposed by the management of the Public Service Authority to achieve the objectives of this section." 2025 Act No. 41, SECTION 41, provides as follows: "SECTION 41. (A) Five years after the effective date of this act, the Office of the Regulatory Staff shall prepare a report, to be filed with the Public Utilities Review Committee and the General Assembly, to address the implementation of Article 24, Chapter 27, Title 58 as it relates to the following areas: "(1) assessing the functioning of the procedures established by section with recommendation for any changes required to ensure their efficient functioning, to promote regulatory efficiency, and to make further the establishment of just, reasonable, and fair rates; "(2) assessing the effect of rates on ratepayers of all classes; "(3) assessing the reliability of the electric system and whether investments made by electric utilities increased reliability compared to any change in electric utility rates experienced by ratepayers within the same timeframe; and "(4) any other information requested by the General Assembly to be included within the report. "(B) The Office of Regulatory Staff may engage a qualified, independent third party to assist in preparation of the report. "(C) All expenses and charges incurred by the Office of Regulatory Staff in the performance of its duties within this section may be defrayed by assessments made by the Comptroller General against the regulated electrical utilities regulated and based upon twenty-five percent of the gross revenues collected by such electrical utilities from their business done wholly within this State in the manner set out in Section 58-4-60 for other corporations." 2025 Act No. 41, SECTION 42, provides as follows: "SECTION 42. Upon passage of this act, Dominion Energy shall evaluate the process for converting the Wateree Generating Station from coal-fired generation to biomass-fired generation. Biomass-fired generation includes, but is not limited to, generation from the firing of wood pellets and wood chips. Dominion Energy must make a report concerning the conversion process to the Public Service Commission and General Assembly by no later than January 13, 2026." Effect of Amendment 2019 Act No. 62, SECTION 7, rewrote the section, establishing mandatory contents of integrated resource plans and providing for certain reporting requirements. 2021 Act No. 90, SECTION 21, rewrote the section. 2025 Act No. 41, SECTION 21, inserted (B)(1)(j); rewrote (C); in (D)(2), inserted "within ninety days" following "submit a report" and inserted "interest within sixty days from the submittal of the Office of Regulatory Staff's report" at the end of the subsection; and made other nonsubstantive changes.