One of Santee Cooper’s overarching tenets is providing affordable power. To get a better picture of residential energy affordability in South Carolina, and specifically how Santee Cooper stacks up, the utility created a cross-departmental team to study it.
Energy affordability is when a household has the resources to meet their home electric needs for heating, cooling and other uses in a responsible, sustainable and efficient manner without compromising a household's ability to meet other basic needs.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), a common metric used to assess energy affordability is known as a household's “energy burden,” which is represented as the percent of a household’s income that is spent on energy.
The EIA states that spending more than 6% of income on home energy (including gas and electricity) is considered highly burdensome or unaffordable. The credit rating agency Fitch also assesses affordability, finding electric systems with an energy burden ratio less than 2.5% exhibit very high affordability, while those with an energy burden over 4.5% represent low affordability.
Santee Cooper’s overall 2022 energy burden for residential customers as calculated by the team was 2.0%, nearly a full percent lower than the South Carolina 2022 average of 2.8% and highly affordable according to Fitch’s standards.
“While these percentages are favorable overall, we understand there are customers who struggle to pay their bills, and we want to do what we can to assist those households,” said Bryan Lewis, Director of Retail Customer Service.
Santee Cooper offers a number of programs to help our customers, including billing and payment options, energy efficiency rebates, energy and safety education, and low interest rate loans.
In addition, the utility’s Community Cares assistance program established a fund that takes donations from any member of the public, to help anyone struggling to pay their Santee Cooper electric bill. Santee Cooper has partnered with the United Way of Horry County to administer the program. Our team also helps point customers in need to federal, state and local programs.
Santee Cooper’s pricing principles take into consideration our mission to be a low-cost provider, and we will continue to strive for affordable rates and to support our customers with programs that help them with the cost of energy.