Call it rate shock! South Carolina residents who are customers of Dominion Energy South Carolina are being hit with an unjust 5.22% of the monthly bill for the terminated nuclear reactor construction project. For an average customer, this is $8.20 per month.
About $10 billion was wasted on construction of two Westinghouse AP1000 reactor at the V.C. Summer site north of Columbia, SC. SCE&G customers were hit with nine rate hikes for the debacle from 2009-2017. And then in January 2019, Dominion took over SCE&G and the South Carolina Public Service Commission (PSC) stuck ratepayers with an additional $2.3 billion, to be paid off over 20 years.
So, here we are, paying 5+% monthly for a project that never provided any electricity. And, you will not see the charge on the bill. The utility or those responsible for the VC Summer construction mistake, like Westinghouse, should absorb all the o the project’s costs as it yielded nothing but financial pain for electricity customers.
At a Dominion rate-hike hearing (Docket 2025-325-E) before the PSC on May 12, 2026, SRS Watch requested in testimony before the PSC that the PSC require the “nuclear boondoggle charge” to be listed on the Dominion bill. The amount of the nuclear charge was entered into the hearing record. (See documents below.) But it is expected that the PSC will do the bidding of the utility and won’t take this prudent step.
It is unknown how the nuclear charge is calculated as it’s done in secrecy. It’s beyond time for the PSC to end that secrecy and inform the public about the charge and how it’s calculated. No doubt, Dominion will howl in protest about that.
SRS Watch found out about the 5.22% charge via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the S.C. Office of Regulatory Staff (ORS) in March 2026. The charge is the same as or similar to the nuclear charge in the past
ORS document that shows the “nuclear boondoggle charge” – in lower right under “BLRA,” which is the Baseload Review Act, passed by the legislature in 2007 and which forced customers to pay in advance for the nuclear construction project.
1. FOIA response with the 5.22% charge: DESC-SCE&G Rate 8 History
2. Cover letter from ORS in response to the FOIA request: 2026.04.09 Letter to Clements w Final Response
3. Testimony of Tom Clements, SRS Watch, to the PSC, May 12, 206, which has the little rate box in it: Testimony Clements to PSC May 12 2026
NOTE: One day, a financial reckoning will come for the customers of the South Carolina Public Service Authority (Santee Cooper), which was initially a 40% owner of the nuclear construction boondoggle. Santee Cooper owns the site now and all the abandoned equipment. Project-restart efforts by Santee Cooper, with Brookfield Asset Management and The Nuclear Company assessing the restart possibility, face the headwinds of reality and it will be a monumental task to start the project back up. See SRS Watch report about the challenges to restart: https://srswatch.org/new-report-by-srs-watch-restart-of-failed-nuclear-reactor-project-in-s-c-faces-unreviewed-challenges-august-20-2025/