South Carolina conducts review of stateʻs energy infrastructure to handle extreme weather

South Carolinaʻs Office of Regulatory Staff (ORS) issued a final report on the resilience of the stateʻs electric and natural gas infrastructure during extreme winter storm events.

The report, which culled data and information from 65 participating utility providers in the state, found that South Carolina’s energy system and utility providers are adequately prepared to prevent and respond to outages caused by ice storms and other winter weather events.

Specifically, the report found that South Carolina has the diversified generation sources to meet high winter demands. While more than half of the electricity produced in Texas is fueled by natural gas, only about 30 percent of electricity production in South Carolina is fueled by natural gas.

“This is an important and encouraging step towards fully understanding the stability and resiliency of the state’s power grid,” Gov. Henry McMaster said. “This is an ever-evolving work in progress and we must remain vigilant, but to know that our utilities have the systems in place to quickly respond to severe winter weather events should be welcome news to South Carolinians.”

McMaster called for a review of South Carolina’s public and private power grid after the February 2021 winter storm that left vast parts of Texas without power and running water.

“We greatly appreciate the participating utilities’ cooperation to help us determine the resiliency of our state’s energy infrastructure in the event of extreme winter weather,” Nanette Edwards, executive director of the South Carolina Office of Regulatory Staff, said. “South Carolina has a diversity of generation sources necessary to meet high winter demands, and our state’s utility providers are prepared to adequately respond to winter weather events.”

The report made several recommendations to enhance the utilities’ ability to respond to extreme winter weather events and to meet peak customer demand.