Efforts to nix South Carolina’s nuclear construction fee to ratepayers could imperil Dominion Energy’s pending offer to purchase one of the utility owners of the canceled V.C. Summer nuclear expansion project. As state legislators near the May 10 conclusion of this year’s legislative session fighting over whether to reduce the fee or cancel it altogether, lawsuits questioning the fee’s constitutionality have proceeded.
Dominion has warned that a rate reduction could cause it to halt its pending acquisition of South Carolina-based SCANA Corp. The Virginia-based utility announced an agreement in January to purchase SCANA in a deal valued at $14.6 billion. Included in Dominion’s offer were items that “would substantially reduce the cost to customers” for the abandoned nuclear project, CEO Thomas Farrell said during an April 27 earnings call.