Charleston City Paper/The Statehouse Report
South Carolina’s Public Service Commission (PSC) has given itself six months to review the largest utility merger in U.S. history — the proposed $67-billion deal between Florida power behemoth NextEra and Virginia’s Dominion Energy, which operates in 20 states including S.C.
The company's plans to add 15 gigawatts of power generation to support data center growth caught the attention of S.C. ratepayer advocates. “It’s all about data centers,” S.C. League of Women Voters Vice President Lynn Teague said with a sigh. “That’s what’s making Dominion such an attractive target.”
Data centers — increasingly controversial in S.C. due to their high water and power usage — have emerged as a major issue in the merger,