By Jerry Bellune

JerryBellune@yahoo.com

Dominion Energy SC wants about $10 a month more from its ratepayers.

The Lexington County-based power giant says its justfication is that: 
• Its requested base rate increase is its 1st in 8 years
• It cut $45 million in annual operating costs while improving customer service and reliability
• Current rates do not reflect the true cost of serving the region’s growing customer base.

Dominion Friday asked the Public Service Commission for a 7.75% rate increase.

That is a little more than half the 15% rate cut Dominion was forced to give ratepayers 3 years ago.

If approved, a typical residential ratepayer using 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity a month will pay about $131.99 a month.

This will be about $9.68 more a month, or about $120 a year in a pandemic while thousands are out of work or scrapng by.

It is expected that the Public Service Commission will hold public hearings next January.

If approved, new rates would be effective in March 2021.

Dominion claims it invested about $3.2 billion to provide electricity to 725,0000 ratepayers and more than 80,000 new ones.

This includes:
• More than $2.1 billion in expansions and improvement to its distribution system.
• About $878 million in upgrades and environmental controls for its generation stations.
• About $198 million in technology and equipment.

The company said its savings since January 2019 have reduced annual operating costs by more than $45 million.
This rate request is the 1st increase sought in more than 8 years, Dominion said.

We asked the Office of Regulatory Staff about the 8-year claim since Dominon has operated here for only 3 years.

"The short answer is it’s true that SCE&G hadn’t come in for a general rate case since 2012," Ron Aiken of the ORS said.

"They continued to get rate increases each year through the Base Load Review Act, which was a different mechanism for increasing rates.

"Those rate increases tied to the BLRA meant enough revenue that they didn’t need to come in for a normal rate increase proceeding with a hearing, intervenors, etc., because the BLRA basically guaranteed a no-fuss rate increase each year.

"When Dominion bought SCE&G, as part of the condition of the sale, Dominion agreed to stay out of a rate case for 3 years, from 2017 to 2020.

"The money that SCE&G legitimately spent on operations and maintenance, investments in infrastructure, etc., over those 8 years but never brought to the PSC to recover from customers was 1 of the reasons the investment looked good to Dominion.

"Besides the $2.3 billon they negotiated receiving over the next 20 years from customers to service SCE&G’s nuclear debt, the money sitting out there waiting to be collected was an asset on SCE&G’s books, basically, and now Dominion is looking to cash it in."