Policy Overview: This Bill allows South Carolinians to become consumers of energy without having to shoulder the high upfront cost of buying equipment like solar panels outright, as opposed to financing them. Through this innovative, free market solution, any business, homeowner, church, school, hospital, retirement center, military base, nonprofit, etc. can lock in affordable, long-term financing rates for electricity produced on their own property. The bill makes such financing possible by allowing third parties (such as banks, credit unions, etc.) to sell electricity to existing utility customers, a practice which is currently prohibited because SC utilities hold exclusive rights to sell electricity within their service territories. These third parties would not have to be registered utilities in order to lease out solar panels. 

The merits of this bill are simple: we must uphold our State’s duty to promote the free-market, limited government interference and consumer choice. This bill’s passage promotes that exact value.

This bill will:

·  provide South Carolinians with the freedom to choose and ability to produce their own electricity for little or no upfront cost

·       provide immediate savings for South Carolinians on their electric bills

·       protect South Carolinians from rising electricity rates

·     allow free market competition against the current oligopolistic system – one dominated by only 3 major utilities in our state.

Facts of the bill:

 Potential utility revenues lost are under $55 million at the most (less than 1% of overall utility revenues).

Overall economic gains from this bill would be about $7.1 billion – a 129 to 1 return on investment from passing it!

By limiting third party sales to 2% of a utility’s peak energy demand – which this bill does – no new capital investments will be required of utilities to “back-up” these distributed systems.

privately financing peak generation capacity, the amount of costly peak electricity utilities must generate is offset.

Utilities argue that passage of third party sales will lead to a higher burden of cost on their low-income electricity consumers – that’s just not true.

Low-income electricity consumers are economically disadvantaged by SC utilities already because utilities continue to hike their rates, made allowable by the Base Load Review Act, an entirely separate issue. This claim is an issue to be taken up by the Public Service Commission.