(A)(1) The term "fuel cost" as used in this section includes the cost of fuel, cost of fuel transportation, and fuel costs related to purchased power. "Fuel cost" also shall include the following variable environmental costs: (a) the cost of ammonia, lime, limestone, urea, dibasic acid and catalysts consumed in reducing or treating emissions, and (b) the cost of emission allowances, as used, including allowance for SO2, NOx, mercury, and particulates. Upon application of the utility, and after a hearing at which all interested parties may appear and present evidence, the commission may, if it determines such action to be just and reasonable, allow the variable costs of other environmental reagents, other environmental allowances or emissions-related taxes to be recovered as a component of fuel costs, but only to the extent these variable environmental costs are required to be incurred in relation to the consumption of fuel and the air emissions caused thereby. Alternatively, the commission may decide that the costs related to these other variable environmental costs may only be recovered through base rates established under Sections 58-27-860 and 58-27-870. All variable environmental costs included in fuel costs shall be recovered from each class of customers as a separate environmental component of the overall fuel factor. The specific environmental component for each class of customers shall be determined by allocating such variable environmental costs among customer classes based on the utility's South Carolina firm peak demand data from the prior year. Fuel costs must be reduced by the net proceeds of any sales of emission allowances by the utility. If capacity costs are permitted to be recovered through the fuel factor, such costs shall be allocated and recovered from customers under a separate capacity component of the overall fuel factor based on the same method that is used by the utility to allocate and recover variable environmental costs. The incremental and avoided costs of distributed energy resource programs and net metering as authorized and approved under Chapters 39 and 40, Title 58 shall be allocated and recovered from customers under a separate distributed energy component of the overall fuel factor that shall be allocated and recovered based on the same method that is used by the utility to allocate and recover variable environmental costs.
(2) In order to clarify the intent of this section, "fuel costs related to purchased power", as used in subsection (A)(1) shall include:
(a) costs of "firm generation capacity purchases", which are defined as purchases made to cure a capacity deficiency or to maintain adequate reserve levels; costs of firm generation capacity purchases include the total delivered costs of firm generation capacity purchased and shall exclude generation capacity reservation charges, generation capacity option charges, and any other capacity charges;
(b) the total delivered cost of economy purchases of electric power including, but not limited to, transmission charges; "economy purchases" are defined as purchases made to displace higher cost generation, at a price which is less than the purchasing utility's avoided variable costs for the generation of an equivalent quantity of electric power; and
(c) avoided costs under the Public Utility Regulatory Policy Act of 1978, also known as PURPA.
(B) The commission shall direct each electrical utility which incurs fuel cost for the sale of electricity to submit to the commission and to the Office of Regulatory Staff, within such time and in such form as the commission may designate, its estimates of fuel costs for the next twelve months. The commission may hold a public hearing at any time between the twelve-month reviews to determine whether an increase or decrease in the base rate amount designed to recover fuel cost should be granted. Upon conducting public hearings in accordance with law, the commission shall direct each company to place in effect in its base rate an amount designed to recover, during the succeeding twelve months, the fuel costs determined by the commission to be appropriate for that period, adjusted for the over-recovery or under-recovery from the preceding twelve-month period. The commission shall direct the electrical utilities to send notice to the utility customers with the antecedent billing of the time and place of the public hearings to be held every twelve months, and the commission shall again direct the electrical utilities to send notice to the utility customers with the next billing if the utility is granted a rate increase by the commission.
(C) The commission shall direct the electrical utilities to account monthly for the differences between the recovery of fuel costs through base rates and the actual fuel costs experienced, by booking the difference to unbilled revenues with a corresponding deferred debit or credit, the balance of which will be included in the projected fuel cost component of the base rates for the succeeding period. The commission shall direct the electrical utilities to submit to the Office of Regulatory Staff monthly reports of fuel costs and monthly reports of all scheduled and unscheduled outages of generating units with a capacity of one hundred megawatts or greater.
(D) Upon request by the regulatory staff or the electrical utilities, a public hearing must be held by the commission at any time between the twelve-month reviews to determine whether an increase or decrease in the base rate amount designed to recover fuel costs should be granted. If the request is by an electrical utility for a rate increase, the commission shall direct the utility to send notice of the request and hearing to all customers with the next billing, and if the commission grants the rate request subsequent to the request and hearing, the commission shall direct the utility to send notice of the amount of the increase or decrease to all customers with the next billing.
(E) The commission may offset, to the extent considered appropriate, the cost of fuel recovered through sales of power pursuant to interconnection agreements with neighboring electrical utilities against fuel costs to be recovered.
(F) The commission shall disallow recovery of any fuel costs that it finds without just cause to be the result of failure of the utility to make every reasonable effort to minimize fuel costs or any decision of the utility resulting in unreasonable fuel costs, giving due regard to reliability of service, economical generation mix, generating experience of comparable facilities, and minimization of the total cost of providing service. There shall be a rebuttable presumption that an electrical utility made every reasonable effort to minimize cost associated with the operation of its nuclear generation facility or system, as applicable, if the utility achieved a net capacity factor of ninety-two and one-half percent or higher during the period under review. The calculation of the net capacity factor shall exclude reasonable outage time associated with reasonable refueling, reasonable maintenance, reasonable repair, and reasonable equipment replacement outages; the reasonable reduced power generation experienced by nuclear units as they approach a refueling outage; the reasonable reduced power generation experienced by nuclear units associated with bringing a unit back to full power after an outage; Nuclear Regulatory Commission required testing outages unless due to the unreasonable acts of the utility; outages found by the commission not to be within the reasonable control of the utility; and acts of God. The calculation also shall exclude reasonable reduced power operations resulting from the demand for electricity being less than the full power output of the utility's nuclear generation system. If the net capacity factor is below ninety-two and one-half percent after reflecting the above specified outage time, then the utility shall have the burden of demonstrating the reasonableness of its nuclear operations during the period under review.
(G) The commission is authorized to promulgate, in accordance with the provisions of this section, all regulations necessary to allow the recovery by electrical utilities of all their prudently incurred fuel costs as precisely and promptly as possible, in a manner that tends to assure public confidence and minimize abrupt changes in charges to consumers.
HISTORY: 1983 Act No. 138, Section 9, eff June 15, 1983; 1996 Act No. 348, Section 1, eff May 29, 1996; 2004 Act No. 175, Section 7, eff February 18, 2004; 2006 Act No. 318, Section 175, eff May 24, 2006; 2007 Act No. 16, Section 9, eff upon approval (became law without the Governor's signature on May 3, 2007); 2014 Act No. 236 (S.1189), Section 1, eff June 2, 2014.
Editor's Note
2007 Act No. 16, Section 1.(C), provides as follows:
"With respect to Section 9 [amending this section] of this act, the General Assembly makes the following findings:
"(1) by Act 138 of 1983, codified at Section 58-27-865 of the 1976 Code, the General Assembly provided a means for electric utilities to make routine, annual adjustments in the amount of fuel cost recovered from customers;
"(2) Section 58-27-865 has furthered the public interest by allowing the recovery of variable and incremental power supply costs on an accurate, timely, and efficient basis;
"(3) by Act 348 of 1996, the General Assembly amended Section 58-27-865 to include in annual adjustments the costs of SO2 emissions allowances that utilities are required to consume in generating electricity; and
"(4) certain electric utilities are now being required to further limit the SO2 emissions from their generating plants and also limit their emissions of NOx or acquire and consume emissions allowances, and proposals are being made to require electric utilities to limit certain other emissions."
2014 Act No. 236, Section 9, provides as follows:
"SECTION 9. If the application of the provisions of this act to any wholesale electrical contract existing on the date of its adoption is determined to impair unlawfully any term of such contract or to add material costs to either party, then that contract will be exempt from the terms of this act to the extent necessary to cure such impairment or to avoid the imposition of additional material costs."