Columbia, SC (WLTX) - The announcement of SCANA Corporation merging with Dominion Energy has raised questions about what will happen for South Carolina Electric & Gas customers.
Dan Weekley, Vice President of Souther Operations for Dominion Energy, spoke about the merger, which includes an average $1,000 refund for customers.
"We thought about the $1,000 refund a lot and we just thought that customers want that refund as soon as possible," says Weekley.
Dominion Energy has agreed to pay $1.3 billion total to customers, as a refund for the failed nuclear reactor project at the V.C. Summer plant in Jenkinsville.
"For an average home that uses about 1,000 kilowatt hours a month, you are going to get a refund of about 1,000 dollars," says Weekley."They don't have to do anything, the refund will automatically be sent to each individual homeowner's house."
However, the plan to pay back customers still needs to approved by state regulators.
"There are a lot if issues that we have to work out with them, specifically, it has to be fair to all customers," says Weekley. "So, there will be a year test period and in that year test period we will be able to say based on their usage, how much of a refund they will get."
Full interview with Dan Weekley can be found here.
Along with the refund, Dominion Energy will lower electric bill rates for customers by five percent, eating a $1.7 billion nuclear cost debt brought on by SCANA's nuclear reactor project.
"We agree that we will lock in rates and not have any path to come to a future rate increase for the next three years, after the deal is closed."
When the deal will be closed is still unknown, but what's for certain is that Dominion Energy is getting the ball rolling on state regulatory approval. That includes preparing for a meeting with the Public Service Commission.
"We will deal with the Public Service Commission, we will listen to ORS [Office of Regulatory Staff] in a collaborative way. This is not about what we should think we should do," says Weekley. "We will be getting that feedback from them."
Dominion Energy and SCANA Corp. are expected to go before the PSC on January 11.