Palmetto State News

The Office of Regulatory Staff (ORS) released a report recently showing that South Carolina’s energy system and utilities are adequately prepared to prevent and respond to outages caused by major winter storms.

It is the final report on what is labeled the “Resiliency of South Carolina’s Electric and Natural Gas Infrastructure Against Extreme Winter Storm Events,” according to a release by ORS. Gov. Henry McMaster requested a review of the state’s public and private power grid after the disastrous February 2021 winter storm that left much of Texas without running water and/or power.

“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,” said Nanette Edwards, executive director of the South Carolina Office of Regulatory Staff. “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.”

Late last February, a joint resolution was made encouraging non-regulated utilities to cooperate with the ORS in an effort to review the power grids. The report included information from 65 utility providers that showed that they would be adequately prepared to respond to things like ice storms. However, the release added that there was an insufficient level of information for a full resiliency assessment for small natural gas utilities.

The report focused on conditions that were similar to the ones faced in Texas during the weather event, according to ors.sc.gov. It did not evaluate impacts of other threats like hurricanes, extreme heat, flooding and other threats due to climate change. It also did not evaluate the impact of a cyber threat.

There were three main conclusions in the report. The first referred to the ability to respond to ice storms and other winter events. The second was the recommendation that some actions be considered to enhance the ability to respond to weather events in order to meet “peak customer demand.” The last was that the state has successfully diversified its energy sources. South Carolina is 30% fueled by natural gas, compared to more than half of Texas.

The report had a list of recommendations that included, but are not limited to, having energy providers strengthen their protocols for being prepared for winter weather events. Another was to evaluate bulk power system reliability under extreme conditions. It was also recommended for the state to build a task force to evaluate practices comparable to Texas. It also recommended the providers collaborate with each other and implement emergency drills and other plans.

“This is an important and encouraging step towards fully understanding the stability and resiliency of the state’s power grid,” 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.”