Powering a Reliable and Sustainable Future: The Importance of Energy Affordability

Powering a Reliable and Sustainable Future: The Importance of Energy Affordability

Posted on May 2, 2024 by Nicole Aiello

It's important to Santee Cooper to provide electricity that's affordable, which is why we created a cross-departmental task force to study energy affordability in the state to see how Santee Cooper stacks up.

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 (which includes gas and electricity) is considered highly burdensome or unaffordable. The credit rating agency Fitch also assesses affordability, finding that electric systems with an energy burden ratio less than 2.5% offer 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 task force was 2.0%. That's nearly a full percent lower than the South Carolina 2022 average of 2.8%. And, according to Fitch's standards, it's highly affordable.

We know that while these statistics are overall favorable, there are customers who continue to struggle to pay their bills. Santee Cooper offers a number of programs to help our customers, including billing and payment options, energy-efficiency rebates, electrical safety education, energy-saving tips, and low interest rate loans.

One assistance program we created is Community Cares, which is a fund that takes donations from any member of the public to help customers struggling to pay their Santee Cooper electric bill. We partnered with the United Way of Horry County to administer the program, and Community Cares funds are available to eligible customers in Berkeley, Georgetown and Horry counties.

In other words, Community Cares is the epitome of neighbors helping neighbors. We also have business and industry sponsors that donate to Community Cares, including Anderson Brothers Bank, Baker Roofing, NUCOR Steel Berkeley, and North Strand Mechanical Heating and Cooling.

Santee Cooper's pricing principles take into consideration our goal 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 electricity.

In addition to our program, our team also helps by pointing customers in need to federal, state and local programs. If you are a customer in need of assistance, give us a call at 800-804-7424.

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