On August 3, the SC Small Business Chamber of Commerce filed a letter with the SC Public Service Commission opposing the 6-month mandatory timeline for the PSC hearing requested by Dominion Energy and NextEra regarding their proposed merger.
Below is that letter.
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August 3, 2026
The Honorable Jocelyn G. Boyd
Chief Clerk/Executive Director
Public Service Commission of South Carolina
101 Executive Center Drive, Suite 100
Re: Joint Petition of Dominion Energy South Carolina, Inc., Dominion Energy, Inc., and NextEra Energy, Inc. for Review and Approval of a Proposed Business Combination Between Dominion Energy, Inc. and NextEra Energy, Inc.; Docket No. 2026-186-EG
Dear Ms. Boyd:
Neither the SC Small Business Chamber of Commerce (SCSBCC) nor I personally have requested to be approved as an intervenor in the above referenced Docket. However, the Commission is set to make an important decision this week on the request of Dominion Energy and NextEra Energy for an expedited schedule to hear and rule on this docket in a six-month time frame.
Either the SCSBCC or I have intervened in every electric rate case heard by the Commission since 2002, including the SCE&G/Dominion Energy Docket in 2018. With this extensive experience, we offer the below observations in opposition to a six-month, or any time limit, being set for this Docket.
1. The last two PSC rate hearings for Duke Energy Progress and Duke Energy Carolinas were completed in about 6 months. These were routine cases in which the Public Service Commissioners had a clear understanding of and experience with the issues to be considered. This Docket will be far more complicated and is comparable to the 2018 PSC hearing on SCE&G and Dominion Energy’s request for Dominion to be approved to acquire SCE&G. That hearing took 11 months for the PSC to reach a directive. Of our current seven Commissioners, only Mr. Williams and Mr. Whitfield were on the PSC during that complicated 2018 hearing. Those two Commissioners, along with the others no longer on the PSC, took the time they needed to arrive at a decision. This Docket deserves the same thoughtful process regardless of the length of time it will take.
2. The number of intervenors in standard rate cases is relatively small compared to the anticipated number of intervenors in this Docket. A six-month mandatory hearing will require the Commission to establish a shortened amount of time for intervenor discovery requests to the utilities. The Commission will probably also need to mandate a time limit for cross examination of witnesses if it puts any time limit on the hearing for this Docket. Such time restrictions would be unfair to the intervenors, the Commission and the ratepayers.
3. The SC Commissioners, intervenors, and ratepayers would greatly benefit from allowing Virginia and North Carolina utility regulators to hold their hearings first on this proposed merger. This would allow for all issues in this Docket to be publicly debated in those states giving the Commission and intervenors more insight into how to move forward with this Docket. In addition, the consumer protections achieved in those state hearings should be the starting point to be applied to South Carolina ratepayers. For example, NextEra has proposed that ratepayers in all three states will receive about a $26 a month bill credit for two years. If our PSC accepts that proposal in its directive under the proposed expedited hearing and then Virginia ratepayers later receive a higher bill credit for the same length of time, South Carolina ratepayers will have been poorly served with a six-month mandatory hearing process.
4. The public officials expressing approval for an expedited timeline for the Commission to complete this Docket do not have experience with any routine Commission hearing let alone one that will be as complicated as this one will be. For this reason, the opinions of experienced intervening organizations should receive more weight. In addition, should the Commission decide to accept the Petitioners request for a six-month mandatory docket, the public will conclude, correctly or incorrectly, that the Commissioners were unfairly influenced by public officials who control who gets to be a commissioner. This outcome will serve to undermine the credibility of the PSC.
In conclusion, establishing an expedited, six-month hearing process for this Docket does not serve the best interest of the Commission and the ratepayers. We encourage the Commissioners to not approve the Petitioners’ request.
Sincerely,
Frank Knapp Jr.
President & CEO
803-600-6874
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