COLUMBIA — South Carolina, like much of the country, is wrestling with a need for more electricity, both to maintain its track record of economic development success and to serve a ballooning population.

South Carolina has at least four large data center projects in the works, collectively needing an estimated 800 megawatts of power daily. Compare that to a single megawatt being enough to power between 400 and 900 homes in a year, according to federal estimates.

But advocates for consumers also have questioned deals utilities and county governments have made with data center developers.

State utility regulators then approved the deal in February allowing Dominion to grant Google a special “economic development rider” rate — 6 cents for every kilowatt hour, compared to 14 cents that residential customers pay.

In addition, Dorchester County offered up property tax cuts — locking the company in to the 4% property tax rate — the rate paid by homeowners — for four decades without reassessment of the property’s value, which is typically done every five years. 

“Data centers are doing nothing to deserve a special deal,” Lynn Teague, a lobbyist for the League of Women Voters, previously told the SC Daily Gazette. “They should at least make them pay their way.”

An effort by the House to block these types of reduced electric rate deals was short lived. The amendment was inserted by the House during its floor debate on the bill last month. A Senate committee promptly struck that section from the proposed legislati