Palmetto State News

Last month, Santee Cooper marked an important milestone when the South Carolina electric and water utility celebrated its 20th anniversary supplying renewable power to customers. 

Santee Cooper began converting methane gas from Horry County Solid Waste Authority into electricity on Sept. 4, 2001, according to company press release. It’s a process that involves taking a potent greenhouse gas and transforming it into renewable energy.

To date, the company has generated more than 1.2 million megawatt-hours of green power, the company release said.

“When I think about Santee Cooper and Green Power, I often think about firsts,” Jim Rabon, senior manager of conservation and energy efficiency, said in the company release. “Creating Green Power from methane gas, we were the first in the state to do that. We introduced solar power to utility customers in 2006. We also installed the first-in-the-state, utility-scale solar program and, even today, we’re expanding that greatly.”

To date, six landfill gas generating sites across the state located in Horry, Lee, Georgetown, Richland, Anderson and Berkeley counties generate Santee Cooper Green Power.

Santee Cooper has 478 megawatts of renewable energy online or under contract with Central Electric Power Cooperative in addition to its Green Power sites, according to the company release.