As part of its efforts to increase its position as a key player in South Carolina’s solar energy market, Santee Cooper and Central Electric recently entered into an agreement to buy solar power from Georgetown County.
“Santee Cooper, Central Electric agree to buy power from Georgetown solar farm,” environmentalist Lee Tyler wrote in a July 3 Twitter post.
The utility has entered into agreements to buy power from four solar projects across South Carolina adding up to 425 megawatts of power to its total solar capacity, the Georgetown Times reported. Georgetown County will contribute 200 megawatts, while Aiken, Williamsburg and Dorchester Counties provide 75 megawatts each.
Four-hundred twenty-five megawatts of solar power accounts for roughly 40% of the state’s current solar power capacity and significantly increases Santee Cooper’s profile in the solar energy sector.
“We are incredibly pleased to be working with an excellent group of solar developers as we transform our power supply to one that is significantly more sustainable and less expensive,” Santee Cooper CEO Mark Bonsall said in a press release, according to the Georgetown Times.
The two-pronged project to add the power to the Santee Cooper system, dubbed Lambert I and Lambert II, is being developed by Nashville-based Silicon Ranch.
Santee Cooper is South Carolina’s state-owned electric and water utility, the state’s largest power provider and one of the nation’s largest public power utilities.
