Net Metering - South Carolina

Columbia Star

By John Temple Ligon
Temple@TheColumbiaStar.com

The installation of photo- voltaic cells on a residential roof can cost tens of thousands of dollars and take over 15 years to pay for itself. The 15- year payback period is due to lack of state-required net metering in South Carolina. In the U.S., 40 states require utilities to accept electricity generated by homes and businesses, also called net metering. South Carolina does not.
In central South Carolina and its Lowcountry, SCE&G is the only area utility that accommodates customers who want to feed surplus power into the grid. But there is no state requirement for such service, and there is no state determination of what a utility should pay for the reversed power fed into its grid. The state’s cooperatives cannot purchase power from their customers due to contractual restrictions brought on by inflexible agreements with Santee Cooper.
Santee Cooper provides electricity to about 40% of South Carolina. As a classic cooperative networked and connected with members, not customers, Santee Cooper does not fall under review by the South Carolina Public Service Commission, as do SCE&G, Progress, and Duke.
About 20 states recently passed laws setting thresholds for when a stated percentage of electricity must come from renewable resources. South Carolina has no such law. The federal 2005 Energy policy Act requires state regulators to consider net metering, which encourages the development of electric power generation by renewable resources, particularly solar.
South Carolina is comparably profligate in energy use. The state spends about $10 billion annually on energy, which places South Carolina 18th nationally in per capita energy consumption. The state’s per capita energy consumption is 381.5 million Btu, and the national average is 337.7 million Btu. Why a relatively poor state spends so much on energy can be partially explained with a relatively poor stock of housing encumbered with inadequate insulation. Also, the electricity rates are low on a national basis, and low price usually encourages purchasing.
Under the federal 2005 Energy Policy Act, the S.C. Public Service Commission is taking public comment through February 1. State residents may comment by letter addressed to the Public Service Commission of South Carolina, P.O. Box 11649, Columbia, SC 29211. By fax the telephone number is 803-896-5246. The docket number must be included on all correspondence: 2005-385-E.
A hearing date will be set later this year. Already Duke, Progress, SCE&G, and two individuals have filed with the PSC as intervenors, which means they can take part in the proceedings at the hearing and even provide testimony.
So far, related hearings in South Carolina have a poor draw. On Wednesday night, December 13, and the next night, Thursday, only three people in the Lowcountry showed up to speak to Santee Cooper executives.
But Santee Cooper maintains its rural roots. Unlike rural S.C., net metering makes the most sense in an urban environment, such as downtown Greenville, Columbia, or Charleston.
In Columbia, for instance, the City Center Partnership’s Business Improvement District could organize its own electric power generation and distribution system, particularly now that SCANA has deserted downtown for Lexington County.
With a neighborhood cooperative, downtown Columbia could sell electricity to the churches and government buildings and other tax- free properties with a slight mark- up over cost, and that minor margin could work as a tax. Through the purchase of electric power, tax- free properties could participate in the support of the downtown services.
Suburban subdivisions could work the sale of electric power the same way. Power purchasers would participate in the support of the common amenities, just as it could happen downtown.
Be it urban or suburban, an independent electric power generating/distribution operation could theoretically feed its excess back to the regulated utility monopoly under a state- mandated net metering law. But, given the power of the utility lobby in S.C. , that’s not likely to be allowed until the next bold step already taken in some other states: retail deregulation.

BY KYLE STOCK
The Post and Courier
South Carolina is finishing near the bottom of the list again, this time in adopting a plan that promotes renewable energy.

The Office of Regulatory Staff, which acts as the state consumer advocate on utility issues, petitioned the Public Service Commission this week to take a close look at net metering, a process in which homeowners or businesses that generate their own power from a source such as solar panels can sell some of it back to their utility. Some 40 other states have required their utilities to offer net metering, most recently North Carolina in October.

The state is required to at least consider net metering under the massive federal energy bill passed in August.

“At this point in time, we’ve taken no position on whether net metering should be or shouldn’t be required,” said Dukes Scott, executive director of the Office of Regulatory Staff. “But the net metering concept does appear to be something that should be examined.”

Utilities, by and large, don’t like net metering. Power feeding back into the grid from homes and businesses can be hazardous if linemen working on outages are not aware of it. And there is some debate as to how much the utility should pay to buy back excess power.

Power companies sell electricity at different rates depending on how much demand there is, but meters would not measure when excess power went back to the utility system. And consumers don’t just pay for electricity when they write checks to utilities. They pay for power lines, customer service and the bills themselves.

Those costs will be the same if they use $1 or $1,000 worth of electricity.

“It is not as simple as it sounds,” said Lou Green, a spokesman with Central Electricity Cooperative Inc.

Ralph Stork, a 76-year-old Myrtle Beach resident, doesn’t understand what the problem is. Stork has spent a good deal of his time in recent years designing and building his dream home, sparing no expense to make it as efficient and sturdy as possible.

In doing so, his research turned up a number of aggressive net metering programs, most notably one in Austin, Texas, where the local utility not only buys power back from consumers but pays up to 75 percent of the high cost of installing solar panels.

Stork has been a one-man net metering lobby ever since, almost two years.

“Don’t misunderstand, I’m not a tree-hugger,” Stork said. “But when I got in this business I thought, ‘God, what in the hell is wrong with us?’”

Stork has gone to great lengths to keep his power bills under $70 a month. He installed state-of-the-art insulation, wrapped his house in an art-tight seal and rigged a system to heat his floorboards with hot water.

But he said he won’t buy solar panels unless he can sell power back to Santee Cooper.

Stork said a strong push by utilities has kept the proposal off the table in Columbia.

“They feel like you’re treading on their territory and they don’t want no part of it,” he said. “If we allow the public utilities to run this thing, you’ll never see net metering or solar panels anywhere in this state. … They can talk about how they’re green and doing all sorts of good stuff, but the proof is in the pudding.”

Santee Cooper does not offer net metering, but Chief Executive Officer Lonnie Carter said the utility will work on a case-by-case basis with customers who want to produce their own power. Carter is an advocate of conservation and noted that Santee Cooper is the only utility in the state with a green power program. But there are a number of challenges with figuring out how to administer net metering, he said.

Scana Corp., which owns SCE&G, has offered net metering since the 1980s, although none of its current customers are participating, according to spokesman Robin Montgomery. Most people scrap their plans when they realize how expensive solar panels and wind turbines are, compared with utility rates.

But Montgomery said inquiries have peaked in the past 12 months.

Charles Terreni, a spokesman for the Public Service Commission, said regulators have not considered net metering before because power customers have not asked for it until recently.

“The extent to which there may be laws on the books in other states and the extent to which it’s already happening will be something we look forward to learning about,” Terreni said.

Meanwhile, homes and businesses around the country are generating more electricity on their own and easing the burden on big power plants.

A handful of North Carolina residents are seeking the state’s first OKs to sell power back to utilities. Vermont residents, who have had the option since 1998, are signing up by the dozens.

And the California Public Utilities Commission is weighing a plan that calls for $3.2 billion in incentives over the next decade for homeowners and businesses that install solar panels.

Contact Kyle Stock at 937-5763 or kstock@postandcourier.com.