Energy expert expresses concerns about Santee Cooper's proposed rate hikes

Santee Cooper, South Carolina’s state-owned utility, is proposing rate increases for all its customers. Those increases for residential customers would be 4.7% in 2027 and 4.8% in 2018. Taylor Allred, State Energy & Climate Program Director at the S.C. Coastal Conservation League, talks with podcast host Frank Knapp about the problems with the Santee Cooper procedure for enacting rate hikes.Allred expresses concerns that Santee Cooper does not invest enough money in low-income housing energy efficiency that has a net positive impact on the utility’s energy expenditures. He also talks about the problem of Santee Cooper charging customers for on-going construction projects instead of waiting until that generation facility is in use as investor-owned utilities are required to do.Taylor also talks about the complicated Santee Cooper’s publicly available data and how it is impossible for small businesses to estimate what their rate increase will be. He also criticizes the utility’s rate structure that he says is unfair to residential consumers and benefits the industrial class.